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[WWK] Review

Started by Mythrandir, 29-01-2010, 08:18:13 PM

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Mythrandir

Well, another expansion has been spoiled and it's time to write a short review regarding our format, so here goes:

White:

Kor firewalker - Good in WW vs RDW, but depending on the meta i'd prefer to play something with evasion or first strike.

Loam lion - yet another powerful drop for naya and zoos. Great card, probably the best white one for the set, but bad design IMO.

Stoneforge mystic - Not bad, 2nd turn drop, getting you that SoFI or another good equipment.

Blue:

Aether tradewinds - Nice trick card, specially if you're playing with ETB effects.

Dispel - Meh.. Probably force spike is better.

Jace, the mind sculptor - good walker, the +2 will never be played while you can have a brainstorm effect, boomerang is a nice -, the ultimate is game winning but to get there just sucks. Still thinking whether this or the old jace

Permafrost trap - like the rest of the cycle, these are just too conditional. C'mon WOTC this could have been a great control card without warping or breaking any format!

Sejiri Merfolk - Not bad for a UW deck for its cost.

Spell contortion - 5 mana for a possible counter and a draw? mehh

Thada adel, the acquisitor - This i like, cute design. Will it see play? Probably not

Treasure hunt - Probably the best blue from the bunch (this or the walker). Makes me want to see a 42land deck archtype in HL

Black:

Abyssal persecutor - Interesting design, great in suicidal or MBC if you can easily get rid of it. Was hoping for a more epic creature because of its picture, though.

Anowon, the ruin sage - yet, almost another good control card: too expensive, too killable, no evasion or relevant combat ability. At least it's better than the Magus of the abyss

Death's shadow - Nice design, but only casual play, at least i can't see a way to abuse it.

Kalastri highborn - Nice creature.

Ruthless cullblade - Nice, cheap vampire.

Red:

Cosis ravager - All fetches are now a shock, not bad, but probably there is better out there.

Dragonmaster outcast - Well, one of the most talked about card of the expansion. Bad first drop, but great afterwards, easy to cast and only needs to survive 1 turn to be relevant. Can easily see this making some HL matches, too bad it's mythic..

Spoiling terrain - Can easily deal a lot of damage vs graveyard decks, but too conditional/expensive

Searing blaze - Nice burn, too bad the double RR makes it less splashable. great in aggro and control that has easily access to RR

Stone idol trap - Nice desing, but wish they made it easier to cast. the 6/12 is just overkill, lool. They could easily have dropped the P/T on this.

Green:

Arbor elf - nice llanowar variant. Great design.

Explore - Interesting card, the cantrip ensures this doesn't sucks. Will probably see some play.

Joraga warcaller - Nice elf for elf decks, probably one of the few that multikicker is actually relevant and playable.

Leatherback baloth - Nice vanilla creature. playable in MGA? it lacks evasion or any relevant combat ability, but it has a nice body...

Omnath locus of mana - Certainly no goyf, but can easily grow a lot, specially in elf decks where G mana is plentiful.

Multicolor:

These 2 cards really seem a bit out of the expansion, at least for me, since i don't know it's storyline....

Novablast wurm - timmy card

Wrexial, the risen deep - the name just makes me LOL. Good casual card, the evasions are a nice bonus. and it's has a good body for it's CMC. EDH will love this.

Colorless:

Amulet of vigor - Perhaps there's a nice combo/trick for this...

Lodestone golem - Nice for staxx, but not very relevant, not even finisher worthy

Razor boomerang - this makes the review for the worse card in the set (although good in limited) I read this 10x, but every time it sucked. Unless i'm missing something here. And i'm all for flavour cards, but this one.. just sucks.

Seer's sundial - Still thinking a lot about this one. Mind's eye, although 1 more mana, ensures "every turn" an extra draw (at least) this is conditional and costs 2 mana to activate, which by the way, WOTC totally sucks in terms of design, if there were more landfadll abilties like this one, ok, but making this one the only one, just means, IMHO, that they couldn't figure out how to balance it...

Lands:

Bojuka bog - The best of the cycle, extremely powerful. I thought at first it removed only 1 card, but it's even better than i first thought very, very playable.

Celestial colonade - All of these are great. I'm still unsure which ones are best, but they will definitely see play, all of them.

Creeping tar pits - Again great, 3/2 unblockable and hard to kill is always nice

Eye of ugin - Great! i like these lands, although right now not playable at all (and probably not in the future too) , i've always liked non-mana producing lands, or at least no directly mana producing.

Halimar depths - not bad, but with so many nonsabic hate you've got to choose your nonbasics very carefully.

Raging ravines - one of the best, IMO. very relevant ability, can be activate more than once for multiple counters and the counters stay, can quickly grow into big menace.

Stiring wildwood- This one i'm gonna test in my 5CC. cheap and efficient manland.

Overall:
Well, for me the biggest problem with this set was the large amount of vampires and allies which is a bit bad for our format, since neither are very relevant, i believe.
Multikicker seemed a bit underwhelming and the "blue is getting some strongs cards" was the overstatement of the year, IMO.
Although WOTC, still has clearly a "thing" for aggro and creatures this set wasn't as awful in terms of creature "power creeping" as some past sets.
Manlands are always great and i hope to see one with WUBRG activation cost. hehe

Well, let the discussion begin... Probably there were some good HL playables i missed there!

Helle

Tectonic Edge - Even though its strictly worse than Wasteland, I think it will definitly see play.

Basilisk Collar - I really like that card. Its fetchable with Trinket Mage so maybe someone will play it. I'll test it in Fish as soon as I get one.

Amulet of Vigor - Great design! That card really looks powerful to me, even though I don't see any combo here. Nice synergy with lots of cards like Root Maze. Can also be searched for by Trinket Mage.

Mythrandir

Quote from: Helle on 29-01-2010, 10:00:43 PM
Tectonic Edge - Even though its strictly worse than Wasteland, I think it will definitly see play.


Definitely playable, yes, totally missed that out in my review. lol

As for the collar since it doesn't boost the damage, i think there are better equipments out there. But playable nontheless.

Helle

Quote from: Mythrandir on 29-01-2010, 10:08:51 PM
As for the collar since it doesn't boost the damage, i think there are better equipments out there. But playable nontheless.

Sure, if it added one or even two power, it would indeed be more powerful. On the other hand, in decks that have a pretty good matchup against control but lack good creatures like skies, it could help strengthen the aggro matchup.

Helle

I recently testet another card in an UG Aggrocontrol and I really liked it: Calcite Snapper. It's a solid blocker against aggressive decks and quite aggressive against controldecks (only tested against MonoB though).

What do you think about it? Is it playable in other decks, too?

GoblinPiledriver

Hmn...
Never thought about this guy. But you are right he seems to be really good card. Safe against Removal and Maze, a good blocker vs aggro. And a 4 power aggresiv creature against controll. Seems like a creature for UGB-Landfall(even fits for the name), 5CC, UW Controll and even for U-Skies since 4 power are enough.
Throw enough goblins at any problem and it should go away. At the very least, there'll be fewer goblins.

Mythrandir

Pretty hard to remove yes, although the double U makes it a bit harder to drop on 3rd turn for some decks, but yes, pretty decent. Nice blocker and nice finisher too.
If damage on stack was still around, this would even be better :P

Definitely playable.

pyyhttu


Nastaboi

Basilisk Collar and Stoneforge Mystic broke out last Pro Tour and are to be seriously considered. Manlands were good, Seriji Steppe was used in aggro and Halimar Depths in combination of Treasure Hunt. Keep in mind that this was standard environment, but standard it pretty fast nowadays so these results do tell about their playability in HL, too. For nonbasic lands there is much competition though as you have to play a fair number of basics, too.

Calcite Snapper seems really good in aggro control, don't know about its goodness in other decks yet.
Quote0:13:51 [Nastaboi] Nastaboi plays Invincible Hymn from Hand
0:14:25 [Nastaboi] Nastaboi's life total is now 221 (+213)