For EDH or Modern?
For EDH, you'd need Crystalline and Hibernation Sliver I reckon.
For Modern... You'd need them to reprint Crystalline and Hibernation Sliver lol
Lol mtggoldfish translation...
Slivers already have diffusion sliverUnsettled Mariner is interesting. Could go into Humans or Slivers (can't imagine Merfolk want to add another color). Curious to see if they'll print any more powerful changelings like that.
It's, like, what's the point?Geomancer's Gambit has me shaking my old man fist at what Stone Rain has become.
Redundancy is nice and it can hold the spot in the deck until MH2 and the "reimagining" of Crystalline Sliver
Any chance of Leovold being in the set? Or has he been number-crunched out?
Leovold in Modern would have been bold.Any chance of Leovold being in the set? Or has he been number-crunched out?
Mardu Pyromancer?Smiting Helix is interesting as a teaching tool.
It's also a bad card. Like a four Mana sorcery speed lightning helix MIGHT be playable in this limited format but you're highly unlikely to flash it back so that's all it ever will be. I don't think there are any (good or halfway decent) red/white self Mill decks that can put this into the graveyard for free.
Double Lightning Helix is not bad, especially not in limited. The flashback is a bonus on an already playable spell.Smiting Helix is interesting as a teaching tool.
It's also a bad card. Like a four Mana sorcery speed lightning helix MIGHT be playable in this limited format but you're highly unlikely to flash it back so that's all it ever will be. I don't think there are any (good or halfway decent) red/white self Mill decks that can put this into the graveyard for free.
Double Lightning Helix is not bad, especially not in limited. The flashback is a bonus on an already playable spell.
Multicolor ramp/control decks have been really common in these Masters sets; I'd expect there to be a strong 4/5c green deck that is actively interested in casting and flashing this back. Think it'll be a higher priority for those decks than for a more aggressive BR shell to want to splash it.But you are unlikely to have the manabase to support it is the issue. You would need a primary black deck that's splashing for the third color. And I don't think a free lightning helix is necessarily worth splashing for on it's own. Maybe you stick in one off-color land and SOMETIMES have the Mana to flash it back but most of the time it will just be a four Mana sorcery speed lightning helix.
This set has a "Poochie" problem with the new cards. Reprints being de-emphasized so that the cards R&D created would be the focus in the FIRST EVER SET TO BRING CARDS TO MODERN OUTSIDE OF STANDARD is something that screams "creative ownership ego at work", where the new shinies your team has invested in creating are valued above the reliable old standbys you didn't have a role in.
I'm not talking about the format-warping ones though. I argued against Counterspell before spoilers were out.Sure. But most of the cards people would love and demand would be format-warping and overall far too strong. So from a design standpoint, ego aside, it makes more sense to design your own cards at the appropriate power level and find another way to tie it in with Magic's history.
We liked a handful of reprints (There are 40, plus the snow-covered lands) as an homage to the Time Spiral "Bonus Sheet," but we didn't want the reprints to dominate so much of what the set is about.
I mean if that's the metric we're using, then they did put in old cards like that.I'm not talking about the format-warping ones though. I argued against Counterspell before spoilers were out.
But there are plenty of cool non-format warping ones in Invasion/Odyssey/Onslaught that could slot right in. Pernicious Deed. Undermine. But they were deliberately not putting high profile splashy old cards in the set because well, let the words speak for themselves.
They fundamentally didn't understand what players would be expecting from the "first set to ever put cards directly into Modern".
They did, but they're massively overshadowed by the new cards, and some of them (Hi, Cabal Therapist) are just bad navelgazing that shouldn't be in the set.I mean if that's the metric we're using, then they did put in old cards like that.
It almost certainly is. The issue is that Cabal Therapist is bad and exists solely to make a joke when it could be an actual reprint that won't be in the dollar bin. Who's the audience for this card? EDH doesn't want it. Modern Spike doesn't want it, it's bad. Modern Timmy doesn't want it, it's not impactful. Modern Johnny....has better things to occupy his time.
If the pitch for the set wasn't "A set that will reprint cards into the modern format that weren't previously legal while including new cards designed for the format", and instead "a 250 card set that is legal for modern that is mostly new cards, with some cards being reprints that will now be legal in the format", I feel like I would appreciate this set more.
When the pitch is "for the first time, cards are coming directly to modern!" and there are reprints, the reprints being deliberately de-emphasized to showcase injoke nostalgia designs is not what players are going to expect.When did Wizards ever imply that this was primarily a reprint set?
All the content creators went bonkers over what stuff they could reprint but literally the first two cards they showed off were brand new, one of which was Serra which was more about flavor and history than any real Modern playability.
This set has a "Poochie" problem with the new cards. Reprints being de-emphasized so that the cards R&D created would be the focus in the FIRST EVER SET TO BRING CARDS TO MODERN OUTSIDE OF STANDARD is something that screams "creative ownership ego at work", where the new shinies your team has invested in creating are valued above the reliable old standbys you didn't have a role in.
The pitch of the set was "Time Spiral 2." The "new cards to modern" part was just an afterthought since it was an idea that had been tossed around plenty in the past. It's clear why the marketing people would want to emphasize the latter over the former, but in design they were clearly more interested in making a 'normal' set with tons of new, exciting cards.When the pitch is "for the first time, cards are coming directly to modern!" and there are reprints, the reprints being deliberately de-emphasized to showcase injoke nostalgia designs is not what players are going to expect.
This was the internal pitch.The pitch of the set was "Time Spiral 2." The "new cards to modern" part was just an afterthought since it was an idea that had been tossed around plenty in the past. It's clear why the marketing people would want to emphasize the latter over the former, but in design they were clearly more interested in making a 'normal' set with tons of new, exciting cards.