Board 8 > Magic the Gathering Topic: Zendikar (Almost) Rising

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hot take

Omnath is perfectly fine. Being able to play 4 colors and beat Aggro is a huge problem

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Well aggro seems lackluster right now and Omnath gaining 4-20 life doesn't help either!

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I think aggro decks lost a lot of good tools from the ravnica sets. I enjoy midrange decks a bit, but full control is boring as hell. Aggro is a lot more fun for me to play

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Omnath out here being played in Legacy now.

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So lets tackle the elephant in the room. Lotus Cobra has to be the one card that most needs to go next, right?

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Maybe they'll ban the ultimatum

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lotus cobra is probably most deserving to go next yeah but that would be huge if they ban a card from a set out weeks.

Ultimatums seem dumb. Banning payoffs instead of enablers seems absurd. Whats after that? Banning Ugin?

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I honestly think the next ban should possibly be fabled passage

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When Lotus Cobra was printed in original Zendikar we had Misty Rain Forest, Arid Mesa etc. If that didn't break the game then the problem isn't the Cobra or Passage. It's Omnath.

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masterplum posted...

I honestly think the next ban should possibly be fabled passage

It's amazing that even without the shock lands, hitting land drops is so easy.

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Got my collector box in today. Nonfoil Verdant Catacombs & Grove of the Burnwillows, Foil Wasteland, Horizon Canopy & Blackcleave cliffs.

Not bad. Still needed foils of Wasteland and Canopy for my cube so I'm quite happy with those.

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Lol saw someone say they should just change landfall so that it costs 3 mana to activate

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https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79012985

I made a poll.

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Peace___Frog posted...

It's amazing that even without the shock lands, hitting land drops is so easy.

I've seen pros talking about it actually isn't in terms of colors - it's just that the format is so slow you can afford to fuck around with all these 2 and 3 comor taplands. Even fabled passage is too slow for aggro decks that don't specifically want landfall triggers.

The mana isn't so good that you can consistently cast multicolor or CC spells on turn 2 but it's good enough to have 4 colors on turn 4.

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7-0 last night with U/G Kicker

Nest of drakes and into the roil are good. More at 11

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I think Roost is probably the best uncommon in the set.

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The BW Cleric gives it a run for its money.

but they are in completely different decks so its not like the difference matters

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I actually find the cleric a little underwhelming in that deck. Its good, obviously Im playing it, but I actually think most of the commons in that deck are better.

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Omnath gaining life might be the thing about it that pisses me off the most

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my favorite uncommon is Thwart the Grave

paying four or five mana to bring back two creatures feels very good. At least once I brought back two of the cleric that drains life based on your party size at the same time to just drain my opponent to death.
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The 1G 2/2 that grows with kicker is also a completely busted card.

This set has some absurd uncommons

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Don't think this was posted yet, but the code ZendikarLands will get you three full art lands.

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Draft was more fun in the early weeks when no one knew what they were doing and I'd get passed Deadly Alliances like 6th pick.

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https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/october-12-2020-banned-and-restricted-announcement?okokaaaa=

I think this is the correct set of bans. Not totally sure Escape needed to be hit, but I also am not against it.

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I agree, but kibler brings up a really interesting point - with the bans over the last year, how many of the top decks are even legal to be played after a major event?

I think Escape is the funniest of the bans, I hardly saw it played until after it started getting abused with the latest set.

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Escape is whatever. They probably were terrified of undershooting twice in a row

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I think its interesting that they explicitly call out escape as a middle ground between enablers like Lotus Cobra and payoffs like Genesis Ultimatum and Ugin.

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I think they wanted to hit Escape to the Wild as it's been an ever present card in both of the dominant decks. Had they killed it when they took out Uro they may have even been able to hold these standard bans off for a little while longer. I know it alone wasn't blowing people out, but it is Light Up The Stage + Explore + extra cards.

I kind of expect rogues to come out of this very strong, but there are some solid cards with escape (especially in red) that can hopefully keep that in check.

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I haven't been paying too close attention to standard because it's been so imbalanced, but I was surprised to see Escape to the Wild banned

On the surface or in a vacuum, paying 5 mana to play an extra land and do that red "exile draw" effect doesn't seem too crazy.

Feels like it's banned because it's guilty of being from the oldest set in standard while also being in the best deck. Reminds me of when they did Rampaging Ferocidon the dirty because Goblin Chainwhirler was busted

At the same time, I'm not attached to EttW. Five cards for 5 mana does feel like a very good rate. I'm suspicious that there could have been a better target (lotus cobra), but it's not night and day

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This could be the best standard format in a long time. We're seeing things like G/W food winning sizable tournaments. There's probably still way too much Rogues, but that's fine.

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Its definitely not the worst standard. I still have some issues with it, but thats more on how Wizards designs cards these days than anything. Its definitely a marked improvement with the bans.

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Commander Legends (official) spoilers start today. Some pretty sweet blue cards.

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Mana Confluence is the Buy-a-Box promo. It's not in the set so the rarity doesn't matter.

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I dont care about Commander, but its time for my tri-yearly reprint Ophiomancer summoning circle.

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has there been enough time for standard to settle?

it's easy to call a standard 'best ever' when it's only been around for two weeks and is completely unsolved. all we have to do is ban the best deck every two weeks

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https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/jiw45n/cmr_opposition_agent/

Damn this is a cool card.

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That is certainly powerful. Power creep is real

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Yeah, Agent is a super neat design.

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https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEIld50RdGfVgL-sXyogehlsqFQgEKg0IACoGCAowrqkBMKBFMMGBAg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

Mobile Arena launch pushed back to 2021.

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Lol

I already thought commander allowing reserve list cards was dumb. People freaking out about a pricey card in a format with dual lands is already funny

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Reminder that literal Timetwister is a Commander legal card.

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Damn wizards forcing me to spend money to upgrade my sultai deck

Sultai deck:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/tasigur-the-golden-fang-3e277f4c-a6c0-4147-8034-7eb03577ee99#paper

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I mean, there's still no reason for them to print a commander-specific Black Lotus. That's just dumb.

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That card blows chunks. What a terrible design.

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