By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Sunday, August 31, 2008 - 07:59 pm:

Blight Lightning
Sorcery
Blight Lightning deals 3 damage to target player. That player discards two cards.
#156/249

What do you think ?

To violent ???

I think it will only work in a deck with cards like bloodstained mire, badlands and other B/R producing lands! Since it is a sourcery it won't be that attractive!

Also the deck would simply have to include hymn tou tourach!

By Bwm Wil Mindctrl (Bwm) on Monday, September 01, 2008 - 03:15 am:

What's the mana-cost? I doubt I'll ever play it if it's three or more mana's

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Monday, September 01, 2008 - 03:17 pm:

Damn! Missed the cost !!!

Its: 1BR which is why it will be dificult!!!

By Nathan (N810) on Saturday, September 06, 2008 - 12:17 pm:

decent card
well above the usual cc curve.

By Nathan (N810) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 09:07 am:

What do you guys think about the new "come into play taped" tripple lands ?

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 10:21 am:

I think free tape for everyone!

Seriously though, I hate it when they simply obsoletize cards, just because they want to do something new. What was wrong with the Invasion duals? They were allright, and still are quite decent! Hell, they even not so long ago made Snow versions of them. They're next to obsolete now too! Was it so hard to give them one simple small drawback extra?

By Nathan (N810) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 10:26 am:

Yea I have an old 3 colored deck with invasion duals and Lairs, I might replace some of those with 4 of these...

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 10:53 am:

They are already obsolete because we had those duals that come into play tapped or you pay 2 life and tehy come into play untapped. Dunno the set, though.

See it this way, now you can probably get a playset of Invasion duals for the price of just 1 of the new triples.

I heard that the set has artifact (creatures) with coloured mana costs ... now, how lame is that? Or was it one of those hoaxes Wizards love to spread pre-release to test out new ideas and how they will be recepted?

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 11:02 am:

Well, I'm not sure if the shocklands from Ravnica are strictly better than the Invasion taplands. The shocklands had 2 landtypes, making 70% of the shocklands Cryoclasmable (which is said to have seen quite some standard play).

I don't think that colored artifact creatures are a hoax, since we already have 3 of them. Transguild Courier (okay, it didn't have colored mana in its cost), Sarcomyte Myr (which, since it's timeshifted from the future, might end up in Alara block somewhere), and Reaper King.

Also, has Wizards ever done a hoax that was not an April Fool's joke?

By Nathan (N810) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 11:04 am:

also the artifacts have a color...
I have seen photos of the cards over at salvation...

I was never a fan of the pain lands ot the pay 2 life to untap lands...

it I wanted lands that hurt just use city of brass

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 01:35 pm:

Of course they are 100% better. They may be "cryoclasmable" but at the same time they can be fetched with Harrow, Land Grant and so on. And when you build a deck with - how did you call them? - shocklands than you know what to add while the player that considers including Cryoclasm doesn't know what lands the opponent is going to use.
It's funny that you are mentioning this argument, though. Because R&D used the same reasoning to justify the original Alpha duallands being strictly better than basic lands: "A Tundra can be hit by Tsunami AND Flashfires and is just more risky to use" (note that there was no non-basic-hate until The Dark).

Nathan, you don't pay 2 life to untap them, just once when you don't want them to CIP tapped. That's a one-time payment of 2 life and only if you need the mana asap. If you play them tapped, you don't pay anything, exactly like the Invasion lands.

By Nathan (N810) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 03:04 pm:

I guess its only a matter of time before we get a tripple land with no penalties except not counting as basic land types... :p

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 04:52 am:

Well Puschkin, I agree 99.99% with you. :P

That argument, is that from waaaay back in 1993?

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 06:22 am:

Yep. It was mentioned in my Pocket Player's Guide from 1994

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 07:02 am:

Hehehe, are there more of these little gems of wisdom in there?

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 07:35 am:

Sure. I dropped some of them here and there in the forums. For example that originally they thought they could balance via rarity. They knew Ancestral Recall was better than the other Boons but they didn't want to break the symmetry and just pushed it from common to rare as in "if only few people have one, it won't matter" ... See, they thought that people would only buy 3-5 boosters per set. The initial card pool for the alpha/beta testers had only 8 Lightning Bolts total. That's why nobody had the idea to restrict deckconstruction to 4-of-a-kind ...

Oh and it also says that the playtest version of the card Rightousness had the picutre of James T Kirk taped to it

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 07:39 am:

Oh and there was a card for 1R that said "target player loses next turn". It should mimic Time Walk light Red Elemental Blast mimics Blue Elemental Blast. That card taught them to phrase card texts more carefully since one playtester took it literally and claimed when he play it, his opponent would lose the game once he started his next turn

Very funny to read. Especially the section abuot deck construction

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 08:03 am:

I thought that was actually the playtest wording for Time Walk...

By Nathan (N810) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 09:55 am:

have you seen ...

Lich's Mirror
Artifact (5)
If you would lose the game, instead shuffle your hand, your graveyard and all permanents you own into your library, then draw seven cards and your life total becomes 20.

By Bwm Wil Mindctrl (Bwm) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 02:52 pm:

Yes, it's crappy!

By Nathan (N810) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 03:07 pm:

I think it has potential combos with spell where you pay X life for some huge effect...
Hatred, Channel, Fire Covenant ?, Lim-Dul's Vault ?

I not shure there are any more cards of this variety...

By Bwm Wil Mindctrl (Bwm) on Saturday, September 13, 2008 - 07:33 am:

Correct, but everything gets reset and your new hand of 7 cards might be the suck and you'll lose...

5 Mana seems like a lot, although the card is good with Channel.

By Nathan (N810) on Saturday, September 13, 2008 - 11:24 am:

yea because you can pay for it with channel,
so it seems likely that you could do this on turn 1
with some p9...

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Saturday, September 13, 2008 - 03:49 pm:

How about an all artifact deck with 4 Channel, and this little gem. You play Channel turn 2, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, play Lich's mirror, get 15 mana, get 7 new cards, anyways, you get the idea. Right?

By Bwm Wil Mindctrl (Bwm) on Saturday, September 13, 2008 - 04:58 pm:

Yes, but each new hand is completely random and T1-players hate random. The odds are too high you'll burn yourself to death after two channels, simply because there's nothing good in that hand...

By Nathan (N810) on Saturday, September 13, 2008 - 08:17 pm:

I hear Lich's Mirror has some potential with
Phasing and suspend cards too.

By Nathan (N810) on Monday, September 15, 2008 - 01:10 pm:

HERE'S ANOTHER INTERESTING CARD....

Creature - Fungus 3(g)(g)
Devour 2 (As this comes into play, you may sacrifice any number of creatures. This creature comes into play with twice that many +1/+1 counters on it.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token into play for each +1/+1 counter on Mycoloth.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 04:52 am:

That card is nuts. Really, cards like these make thinking during deck construction obsolete.

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 07:06 am:

Try a Revised Sealed Deck. You'll always end up playing Green Red, since you'll certainly get a Channel and at least 2 total of Fireballs and/or Disintegrates.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 07:22 am:

Chances are less than one out of ten that you open a Channel with just one Starter of Revised.

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 09:30 am:

One starter and 3 boosters is just right. (At least, for prerelease tournaments. For more important tournaments, it's just 2 boosters and a starter. But that's so much less the fun!)

But still, if you don't get Channel, you'll still get some x damage spells, a lot of playable green creatures, and some red creatures to fill it off.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 09:44 am:

That's because green is the only colour in Revised that has creatures for all casting costs within the commons. Mostly vanilla creatures, mind you. What has that to do with Mycoloth? That thing has the sacrifice outlet, added sizebonus AND continous token production rammed all into the same nice package for just 5 mana. Years ago you would have needed 2-3 cards to get the same result.

By Nathan (N810) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 10:39 am:

Coat of arms nameing Saproling
Artificial Evolution on Mycoloth
and flickerform him every turn
for huge creature and masive tokens

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 10:46 am:

What I'm saying is that thinking during deckconstruction of a Revised Sealed deck (1 starter 2/3 boosters) also doesn't require much thinking. I started about it because this guy at University organizes a draft every Wednesday, and now he has the chance to buy a boosterbox Revised for €12 per pack, so as soon as there are at least 8 people who want to pay €36 for a Revised draft, he'll buy it.

So now I'm playing the Sealed deck function of Shandalar: DotPW, to practice, but if you only as much as take a look at the common creatures in white, blue and black, you'll see that playing these colours is going to be difficult.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 10:58 am:

I still fail to see what the content of a basic set that was printed at a time when Sealed and Draft wasn't in the minds of the developers yet has to do with the current trend to print cards that their combo built in.

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 11:19 am:

Nothing at all. It was just the

---

Quote:

thinking during deck construction obsolete

---

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 12:18 pm:

Ah, okay. you just confused me because i thought it was an argument instead of a brainstorm thingy.

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - 12:47 pm:

Why didn't you say so immediately? Could have saved me 3 posts!

By Nathan (N810) on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 12:17 pm:

Elspeth, Knight Errant (2)(w)(w)
Planeswalker - Elspeth
+1: Put a 1/1 white Soldier creature token into play.
+1: Target creature gets +3/+3 and gains flying until end of turn.
-8: For the rest of the game, all your enchantments, artifacts, creatures, and lands are indestructible.


Broken ???

By Troy Aguilar (Troy) on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 03:37 pm:

dude, elspeth is so broken.
you can play a creature with 1/1.
and then enchant if and make it a 4/4.
and both of these things give you a loyalty counter!

The best planeswlaker in the shards of alara set, hands down

By JG (Jestergoblin) on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 11:01 pm:

Notice we don't know Elspeth starting loyalty...

By Nathan (N810) on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 11:28 pm:

Oops I forgot that bit the loyalty is 4...

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 04:29 am:

YARRR, he be no match for any Piratewalker at all!

By Sam KoMN (A1withnoname) on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 07:55 am:

There be some piratin' sorts in Alara! A right fine thing, in me 'umble opinion.

Espeth might be a card fer 4CB, right fine lass that she be.

Arr.

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 08:10 am:

ARRR1! Ye be competin' this scurvy round too?