As far as they're concerned, adapt is a returning mechanic. This likely means Azorius won't have a returning one.
First reaction to riot was that it's Fanatic of Xenagos but with you choosing as a mechanic, then I realized it's a strictly better unleash. And I see, this is why MaRo was talking about green becoming secondary in haste (when it was tertiary before).
abzan-adherent asked: Hey Mark, I wanted to give my input on Adapt. I think part of the reason is that it doesn't feel different enough from Monstrosity to warrant being the new Simic keyword. I think if you had just reprinted Monstrosity, it would have been well recieved.
We treated it as if it were a reprint. In my preview article I talk all about how it's a reprint. We tweaked it to make it work better with Simic (both to solve memory issues and let you use counters as a resource and reuse the ability). We're not trying to pull a fast one on anyone. It's essentially a reprint like Convoke was on Selesnya.
December 19, 2018
zargasheth asked: Ignoring the actual gameplay of it (which seems like an improvement), do you think Adapt would have gotten a better first-impression response if it had been an exact return of Monstrosity?
Maybe. The problem Monstrosity has memory issues with cards that put +1/+1 counters on other creatures, something Simic does a lot.
December 19, 2018
As far as they're concerned, adapt is a returning mechanic. This likely means Azorius won't have a returning one.
Except there was no reason not to Unleash most of the time. Most people will probably favour the counter, but the option to give it haste is great.That's actually a really cool mechanic. It's amusingly very similar to Unleash, which was a Rakdos mechanic before, but I like it a lot.
"+1/+1 counters matter" is a pretty evergreen mechanic.New mechs to me so far:
Riot > Spectacle > Afterlife > Adapt
Something about Adapt right now seems off. Beyond a one-time mana sink, I'm not really seeing how it would be useful in the long run.
Hexproof on your turnA 4/4 Trample with random Hexproof for 3 mana is the most power creepy shit ever
A 4/4 Trample with random Hexproof for 3 mana is the most power creepy shit ever
If anyone was asking "but why Red?!" it's because they don't hate Hero's Downfall, it's that Hero's Downfall gets played as a 4x in every black deck in Standard (it often did when it was legal) and they don't want it to be a 4x in every black deck.
And now it's much harder to cast so good job?If anyone was asking "but why Red?!" it's because they don't hate Hero's Downfall, it's that Hero's Downfall gets played as a 4x in every black deck in Standard (it often did when it was legal) and they don't want it to be a 4x in every black deck.
They don't want you to splash it.And now it's much harder to cast so good job?
Can' t even splash it in Grixis.
It still was a 4x in Abzan Rhinos. It was a good card and if you were playing black there wasn't any reason not to put 4 in. It wasn't a reward for playing those colors. It was just ruthlessly efficient and wasn't dead even against stuff like Azorius Control because they still ran Elspeth and Jace.
It had worse mana than this one - it was either Temples/Shocks or Temples/fetchlands. This format has Checks and Shocks, so it's conceivably splashable if you're B/x/x.That format had crazy good mana bases though. Wasn't there even a 4c Abzan deck?
Checks and Shocks are about as good as mana gets in Standard.At PT Dragons Brad Nelson was playing some number of: fetches, trilands, painlands, temples, Urborg, and Mana Confluence in his Abzan deck
You don't need a full playset of all the lands for competitive play; just the ones in the deck that you plan to play. If you switch decks, they're pretty liquid, so it should be easy to trade one check for another; same with the shocks.They should be uncommon though. Looking at almost $100 for a competitive dual land manabase (a full set of shocks + checks) is almost downright criminal and prices a lot of people out of competitive play.
You don't need a full playset of all the lands for competitive play; just the ones in the deck that you plan to play. If you switch decks, they're pretty liquid, so it should be easy to trade one check for another; same with the shocks.
You don't need a full playset of all the lands for competitive play; just the ones in the deck that you plan to play. If you switch decks, they're pretty liquid, so it should be easy to trade one check for another; same with the shocks.
Even real ABUR duals were incredibly cheap back then. Sigh...Remember when the Invasion duals and allied painlands were $2 a piece and Rishadan Port was like $10? Good times.