XLN Spoilers

>why can't cards be good?
Cards can certainly be good user, but these are all uncommons goy. The good cards are placed at mythic for the most profits!

Joke aside, this set has seemed really fucking boring. Even some of the rares are just fucking re-hashes like Authority of the Consuls on legs or Torpor Orb on legs.

Actually, looking over the rare and mythic list, I can pick out maybe 15 cards that do something new or interesting, with another 21 being so boring and ho-hum they may as well be reprints. Some of this shit like Rowdy Crew, Daring Sabotuer, Deeproot Champion or Emperor's Vanguard seem like they were put a rarity level higher than they should be as some sort of cruel joke to anyone who dares to open packs anymore. Look at Angreath's Marauders, Goring Ceratops or Verdant Sun's Avatar and tell me what deck would ever run these cards outside of EDH jank. I don't give a shit if they're meant to be Timmy's big fatties, they're not even interesting fatties. They're the most win more, do nothing piles of shit that will never see play in a non-EDH constructed format.
If they have to push shit cards to higher rarities and mana costs because of "muh limited", they should just scrap the card and try making something else interesting.

Honestly, the only cards I've really given a shit about so far are Treasure Map, Ogre Hand Ravager, Captain Lannery Storm and Deadeye Plunderers. Four fucking cards out of almost the entire rare sheet and a fair handful of uncommons.

WotC designing cards in standard sets for Limited and Commander usage is killing the fucking game.

sure, buddy

Can we just have a cavern of souls reprint?

>WotC designing cards in standard sets for Limited and Commander usage is killing the fucking game.

I thought Magic was selling better than ever before?

>have 2 of
>also have 2 ballistas
>remove counter from ballista A to shoot dino A
>put counter on both balistas and dino B
>remove counter from Ballista A to shoot dino B
>put counter on dino A and both ballistas
>repeat until ballista B has enough counters to kill opponent

It is. Player acquisition and player retention have increased too.

What people really mean is "I'm deeply offended that WotC would neglect me. This will be a dire mistake, as I am their only important customer."

>I thought Magic was selling better than ever before?
Player retention is dropping and need I remind you that there are FIVE cards banned from fucking standard because of their fuckups.

Were sales boosted by lottery cards?

Translation:

~ gets +1/+1 as long as you control another merfolk or Island.

>le green text wall for explain the dumbest 4-piece combo ever existed instead of just take the bant
the absolute state of standard

I can dig it.

I am not going to speak for the community as a whole because I don't have the data. I can tell you that my nearest LGS, which is the highest rank possible in the WOTC system, has found it impossible for weeks to get draft or standard to fire, and turnout for new sets is embarrassing. Again, I can't tell you if other stores are having happy times, but the one I attend is finding Magic an increasingly hard sell. This last happened with Mirrodin.

you only need 1 balista, and a swing actually. but that's still 16 mana. 20 mana if you wanna use the second balista to shoot face,

This might actually have implications for Modern Merfolk, considering Cursecatcher and Aether Vial are the only 1-drops atm. Manabase would have to be retooled, but between Botanical Sanctum and Cavern of Souls, I can't imagine it being that difficult to accommodate this.

aaaaaand there's the card that goes infinite with ballista

If green goes into Modern Merfolk is it wise to run CoCo instead of Master of Waves?

>WotC designing cards in standard sets for Limited
So, you're suggesting that they arbitrarily drop support for limited, despite it being one of the more skill-intensive formats?

They always do that with a new card type. First examples are batshit broken and then they start toning them down bit by bit. The most powerful equipment were printed in the Mirrodin block (exception is Jitte, which was a straight up accident of design).

>need two
>costs 6
>going infinite ever
There are far better things to do with 16+ mana

So, is standard gonna be slower then ixalan comes out? I might like that.

>So, you're suggesting that they arbitrarily drop support for limited, despite it being one of the more skill-intensive formats?
I'm saying they stop printing garbage rares because "muh limited". WotC can certainly design for limited and make good sets, look at both the Conspiracy sets.

Limited is WotC's excuse to print shit standard sets and they need to stop using it as a scapegoat.

Most likely. CoCo is fucking broken.

not the first time a 6-mana infinite dork got people all hard in spoiler season

>Reanimator or ways to cheat this into play don't exist
>Winding Constrictor doesn't exist
I'm not saying it's busted or that it'll even see play, point of fact is that it goes infinite.

The suggestion I always give is to just cut rares and mythics from limited entirely. This way you can balance them exclusively for constructed, and limited benefits from reduced variance brought on by bullshit rares.

>winding constrictor
you need two because otherwise the dinosaur dies in five shots. adding to the counters doesn't help it survive.

Only the first Conspiracy is a good set, the second is hot garbage where 99% of cards are unplayable in any format other than Take the Crown draft.

>>Reanimator or ways to cheat this into play don't exist
Show me what you're going to cast in standard to re-animate this with that will be worth the cost saving, especially when you could re-animate a titan or Razaketh.
Closest I could see is using an Ever After to grab 2 of them from your yard.

I'm glad we got an ankylosaurus, but are all dinos really gonna be high-cost hank? It feels like running them as anything other than a handful in a standard deck of another tribe as finishers would just end badly, since a dedicated dino deck would be too mana hungry.

Right now UG merfolk is the only thing I'm excited for

That would solve the problem, but it would also make Limited really boring I think.

Then again, I never understood how people could stand to play Pauper either and that format is pretty popular so maybe people in general don't think all the interesting cards are rares like I do.

Anybody else really dislike the flavor of these "totally not elves even though we're walking in forests all day" Merfolk?

>the second is hot garbage where 99% of cards are unplayable in any format other than Take the Crown draft.
So, just like most Standard sets that come out?
I was saying they were good DRAFT sets, they don't have to be good constructed sets. The point is WotC is half-assing a ton of cards because "well muh limited!".
There's making a limited set (Conspiracy) and then there's phoning it in as an excuse (Most of the X Masters sets having shitty reprints because WotC says "It's for draft guys!").

>So, just like most Standard sets that come out?

I don't think we have seen a Standard set as overall terrible as Take the Knot since Born of the Gods. There's lots of sets that are overall bad except for a couple specific mythics/rares, but TTC isn't "overall bad", it's utterly unusable. You're like 40% likely to get a rare that literally cannot be put into a deck if you're not drafting. It's insanely bad when it's bad.

Nope. Merfolk have always been able to come on land. The way I see it as long as they have to take a swim in a nearby river every So often then it's fine.

Yes, master was only really good when bolt was the premium removal, now it has been substituted with push and push kills the master with revolt.

Not really. You're basically complaining that one green tribe is similar to another newly green tribe because they both inhabit the basic land type of green.

No way, screw you. The second Conspiracy brought down to earth the prices on Berserk, Show and Tell, Inquisition of Kozilek, Ghostly Prison, Serum Visions, and Beast Within, plus gave us a load of cool cards for legacy like Recruiter of the Guard (C. Breakfast, DnT), Leovold, Emissary of Trest (Elves), Kaya, Ghost Assassin (Deadguy Ale), and Palace Jailer (Soldier Stompy). Hell even Vintage got Daretti for its Welder Reanimator decks.

The reprints were miles better for constructed than any standard set we've had in a lifetime, and the limited environment was terrific.

No, I'm complaining that merfolk should not be in any color other than blue and fuck off the edge of my dick.

>Merfolk should only be Blue
>Lorwyn/Eventide the sets that really popularized Merfolk had some in mono-White, Blue/White, Blue/Green, and Blue/Black.

Que???

We've already had them in mono-white and mono-black, and Ravnica already went pretty far with UG Merfolk as is.

Aside from them not living on Mountains, Merfolk seem pretty versatile. Hell, those mono-white merfolk didn't even have legs.

Nope. Just because someone lives in a certain environment doesn't mean they have to abide by that colour identity.

If there was a set with a legendary merfolk rebel trying to overthrow something would you be mad if he was mono-red? Or preferably not the "red can only be angry/overthrow things" meme but you get the idea. The culture/group morals of something depicted on a creature card can change it's colour association outside of it's tribal association.

Merfolk aren't fucking robots with one personality, they can be just as diversified as humans are.

>If there was a set with a legendary merfolk rebel trying to overthrow something would you be mad if he was mono-red?

Yes? Absolutely I would be mad. Just like I'd be mad for a mono-blue Goblin.

Except for the three remaining Swords and Batterskull.

Maybe you're just an angry person.
How have you taken the White Vampires so far?
Did you have a seizure when Fallen Angel was printed? Maybe you actually died all those years ago and never realized you're in hell? Maybe we're your personal demons, come to torment you once again?

They've already made mono-black and mono-green goblins, and WR and UR goblins have quite a few hybrid and multicolor cards.

For these major tribes, it's just a fact that they're going to steadily branch out and be depicted in more and more ways.

My sentiment exactly. Would love se crappy Island Forests though.

Not at all. I like certain staples like humans, elves, and goblins to not be on every plane, and most Magic races are kind of generically interchangeable anyway. Amphibious elf-splorers on a water plane is fine by me.

>Batterskull

Batterskull kind of plays into the argument, just a bit. It was something created from playing with a new thing, "Living Weapon". That's them not being sure how to cost something being both an equipment and a creature.

Merfolk already seem pretty heavily Green in philosophy a lot of the time. They often use bone weapons, wear primitive armor, make use of wildlife where they live, live in small tribal groups that aren't accepting of non-merfolk, revere their past and traditions, etc.

Honestly, it's harder to come up with Blue stuff for them that isn't just the fact that they live underwater.

>Yes? Absolutely I would be mad. Just like I'd be mad for a mono-blue Goblin.
Why? Outside of tribal decks, creature type doesn't matter? A number of races already cover most colors, so it's not like to against the rules for basically any creature to use any mana.

I miss Orcs being depicted as Anti-White tribal, it gave them a great flavor. Hell I miss anti-color/land-type cards in general.

Because it destroys the identity of the color, goblins are the face of red because they are dumb and impulsive, some exception here and there is fine, there could be like 1 legendary mono U goblin because he's particularly smart schemer with a lore reason behind it but it must not be the norm.

Facts don't do anything against these whiners.

Creature - Dinosaur
5/5

Trample
When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals 1 damage to each other creature

Something about carnivorous dinosaurs developing a taste for undead (read: vampire) meat even though it lacks blood seasoning.

I'm assuming we ended up with Green Merfolk for the same reason we ended up with Blue Zombies. Everything on Innistrad wanted to be Black, so they did everything out of Black as often as much as they could. On Waterworld Ixalan, everything wants to have water themes and lean a little Blue, so they decided to try branching out.

I don't get how these cards worked when everyone was playing decks against the same people made from out of the contents of 9 boosters.

If little Sally Dawnwhite has only one deck that happens to be white and little Tommy Tremorfire has this card, how many games will they really play before just quitting MtG?

It isnt the norm, so fsr its just ixalan eith mono green merfolk. The fact of the matter is, if they want to do tribal, tribes NEED to be split into multiple colors for the purpose of limited, so Merfolk HAVE to bleed into a second color. Green is like the least offensive color they could have bled into I think besides maybe black, and we already had Grixis pirates. I still think the white merfolk are weird.

>it but it must not be the norm
Oh I mostly agree with that, but these Merfolk seem fine. Like pointed out Merfolk are pretty green in general, in addition to the ones that are actually green. Also, if a plane doesn't have elves, something's going to fill the roll. Merfolk, snakes, naga, humans, whatever. And what an "elf" is is pretty versatile. Why not the same for Goblin within reason?

I also think the norm can be shifted. Leonin are green and white, not just white with green or green with white. We've had monoblack elves in a few sets, and Lorwyn's black goblins (admittedly closer to what you pointed out a goblin should be).

Didnt actually expect theyd do self damage enablers for enrage.

They printed banishing knack in the same set as {Q} and Heroic+Bestow in the same set. Why wouldn't they print enablers?

I'm excited for more fight cards in this set.

Dunno. Just seems like a weird thing to encouage damaging your own creatures. In fairness this was one of the more natural applications.

I'd argue SFM is what made Batterskull broken, not the card itself.

>Didnt actually expect theyd do self damage enablers for enrage.
In the fucking video showcasing the mechanic they even say "also look out for the enablers we'll be showing in spoiler season".

A five mana batterskull is completely fair. Strong, but fair.

But they knew Mystic existed, so they really have no excuse for not getting how busted it would be.

It continued to see play well after SFM left standard, and has some play in Modern without her. SFM certainly didn't help, but Batterskull is a house unto itself.

So how are everyone's decks looking after all the Ixalan spoilers so far? I was running B/R Madness so about a third of my deck is leaving Standard next month. I'm thinking of just turning it into a fast Aggro deck by adding a few Glorybringers and maybe some cheap 2-drop black dude (Thinking Gifted Aetherborn but the two black is kinda pushing me away from it). The only card I can see using from Ixalan so far is pic related. Maybe Bloodcrazed Paladin if his price doesn't spike superhard because lol EDH Vampire Tribal

>Player acquisition and player retention have increased too.
Source on this? Not a doomsayer but this post is worthless without a source

>that one guy on Veeky Forums who thinks Rowdy Crew is good

I'm envious of your levels of delusion.

Nah man.

This saw play for a while. Random discard isn't as bad as it seems when it gives card advantage.

I'm not banking on it seeing play, but people are underestimating it.

Random discarding 2 cards will fuck you over and it's just a 3/3 that costs 4 mana, it's garbage.

WE ONE PIECE NOW!

I think it's a solid card. 3/3 trample for 4 isn't that bad overall, and if your hand is empty then it's basically just a free drae with a slight chance at making it a 5/5.

It's a decent threat with a rather beneficial upside. I just think it won't see much play due to being mythic. If it were uncommon, it'd be a mediocre threat.

It wouldn't be high on my list for draft targets, that's all I'm saying. You could argue it replaces itself at least, but given just how BIG a lot of the dinos are, I can't see a 3/3 body for four being anything but disappointing.

what, drag on for 20 years on various Rescue X arcs while never going anywhere with the plot?

was actually talking about the big ass fucking ship, but that works too

Tribal Enrage trigger! I love it!

>Fatally pushes your crew off the plank
:^)

>Dies to removal

Hot argument, and it's still a benefit if you play it with an empty hand in that case, since it does -something- when it comes in.

GRANNY
R
A
N
N
Y

If humans can exist in all colors then so can merfolk, you tribalist scum.

WTF is this.

>3/3 trample for 4 isn't that bad overall
For that same 4 mana you can get any number of better creatures of things in standard right now.

To list a few, Skyship Stalker (3/3 flier with firebreathing, first strike and haste all being costed abilities on the card), Heart-Piercer Manticore (4/3 with a "You may" fling on ETB plus an enbalm ability), Hazoret the Fervent of course, Spontaneous Artist (3/3 that lets you pay E to give things haste) and Voldaren Duelist (3/2 haste that makes a creature unable to block on etb).

ALL of these are better than a 4 mana 3/3 trample that rarely becomes a 5/5 but more often makes you discard all your gas and leaves you with bad cards.
You want to play crew as a finisher when you played all your other good cards, but it has no immediate impact that brings you close to winning the game. All of the cards I listed did, either having haste or in the case of the manticore, just dealing damage on ETB.

Rowdy crew is unplayable garbage, if you want a 4 drop creature you're already spoilt for choice. And of course, this is forgetting that you could just be slamming Chandra for 4 mana and getting card draw AND burn on a stick.

Only in the context that you aren't running any cards that benefit from being discarded or in the yard. Desperate Ravings was ran because of flashback, after all.

It isn't all downside.

>discard your gas

The idea is to play him when you're out of gas, and put a threat on the board while drawing into something more helpful. Ideally, you'd also be playing it alongside the Amonkhet cards that want to be in your graveyard, so that evenly randomly discarding things you still get more benefit.

It's not the greatest 4 drop in standard, no. It probably shouldn't have been mythic, but it's a far cry from being as bad as you seem to think

>Only in the context that you aren't running any cards that benefit from being discarded or in the yard.
There is also better discard outlets than a random discard on a 4 drop so it's really not that great. What exactly are you going to discard off him anyway? You normally want to CHOOSE when you want your madness cards discarded after all, so you can pay for them.

Well, part of the set is set in Not!Mexico and there are vampires, soooo...
youtube.com/watch?v=XUhVCoTsBaM

>The idea is to play him when you're out of gas,
You know what's better than playing a 4 mana 3/3 trample that effectively draws 1 card when you play it?
Playing an actual haste-d threat.
Again, tell me what cards you actually want to be throwing to the graveyard with him that are worth running a slow, almost always under-statted 4 drop.

Rowdy Crew would actually be great if it was just Discard instead of Discard at random.

But I guess rummaging isn't Red enough, has to be random too.

So what is the IRL reason that every time spoiler season rolls around the cards are always spoiled in a variety of different languages?

It feels like the sort if card that was initially not random, got bumped to mythic for being too strong, and then got changed to random at the last second.