I too first started playing magic because of the artwork, simply amazing!
I admire great artwork to this day and collect cards based on artwork, tho admittedly, I have grown to focus more on the card text and casting cost more than artwork over time.
Donato Giancola is also one of my favorite artists as Glory is one of my all time favorite pieces of artwork (as you can probably tell from my avatar), I have a HUGE collection of of Glory's, many of which signed by Donato when I had the pleasure of meeting him at a Grand Prix some time ago.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Stoic Angel definitely jumped out to me as great pieces of artwork when I first saw those cards. I hope Mr. Volkan Baga will continue producing beautiful artworks for Magic and I hope to meet him some day to get some of my cards signed.
Thank you Nafiz for this interview and writeup and thank you Mr. Baga for doing this interview!
I will agree on this - I didn't notice that Whiffy had mentioned bannings in the article. Bad Whiffy - you know better.
___________
I agree also that it's absurd to talk about Strip Mine in unrestricted terms...
___________
But that doesn't change the fact that there are times when the comparisons work and there are times when they don't. For example, as a base for good card interactions, sometimes using Vintage works really well, and other times the lack of significant mana acceleration makes the deck completely ineffective. How else has a card like Mind's Desire escaped even the slightest hint of restriction when in Vintage it is so busted it's restriction was pre-ordained? Look no further than Classic != Vintage. The same can be said about any number of comparisons between Classic and Vintage and Classic and Legacy.
___________
And of course it will be possible to beat a deck that recurs Strip Mine and Mana Denial. It was possible to make a deck that beat 4x Flash too, and 4x Necro, but that has never been a good reason not to take action in a meta. The problem here is that even restriction of Strip Mine *Might* not resolve any possible problems. 1 Strip Mine might be more than enough. If the only decks are Mana Denial starring restricted Strip Mine, and decks built specifically to defeat said strategy, there it literally nowhere else to go (short of some ridiculous restrictions) - other than to simply not play Classic that is.
___________
Let's put it another way. Imagine it's 2007, and MED1 was coming out, and in MED 1 there was Force of Will, Mana Drain, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt and Time Vault and (somehow) Tinker and Voltaic Key were also available. But no other powerhouse card cards... That format would be terrible, right? No amount of restrictions would keep the format from evolving into Blue Based Time Vault/Tinker decks and decks running cards specifically to beat said Blue Decks.
___________
In essence, I'm saying that I'm not comfortable with the fact we are getting Strip Mine ahead of any relevant artifact acceleration. If Sol Ring and Mana Vault were online, I might be much less hesitant, and much less so if all the jewelery was here. Looking into my crystal ball, I see a chance that someone develops a classic deck abusing strip mine that the meta is powerless to react to in any meaningful way. And jumping ship to Legacy isn't the answer.
What a great read, thanks for it! Always catch the article, but this was a treat. I was one of those who joined for the art, when Tempest just released.
personally i would like to have the turtle over the counterspell. the scatter will for sure be a 1 for 1 but the turtle can hold of x/1's all day long and help staunch the bleeding.
the deck currently cant solidly say that the scatter will be strong and there is a much higher chance of scatter tabling then the turtle.
In the Bomb-Removal-Creatures heirarchy, Ride from the grave is just on the cusp of being a solid bomb. Its the least expected card in M10 Limited, but it provides the most swing when played. The Essence Scatter, however, gives you something to do in the early turns while waiting for the Air Elemental to get going. I wouldn't really pick the Scatter as early as pick 2.
As other have already stated, Ride from the Grave is much better than any other black offerings from that pack.
I guess I don't understand any of the discussion then. If we are to simply say that Classic is its own format and draw no comparisons, then how do you even make a case that Strip Mine is worth restriction without having it played in the format? [This is obviously an ad absurdium point]
We have the benefit of drawing comparisons and we should, within context. I never said that Classic = Vintage, I was simply giving a point of reference. I also DID say that sometimes searching out a Mine will be the right play. My point (without using Vintage references) is that it is possible to build a deck that can beat Strip Mine recursion because the deck recurring the Mine is probably not doing anything to win the game (ever held back lands knowing an Armageddon was coming?). Classic also does not have one of the other cards that makes Strip Mine strategies good, Mishra's Workshop. The Shop allows a deck to develop while delaying its opponent. Ancient Tomb and the soon-to-be-online City of Traitors are NOT good enough to make this a viable strategy for very long.
Please don't forget that, the entire premise of my post (and I would imagine many other responses) was in response to the author essentially saying that 'with enough player support Strip Mine could get banned.' If bannings are not an option, again, the point is moot. Arguing the need for a Classic.5-type of format would be more to the author's point, I suppose.
There will always be players that feel strongly one way or another (I believe Land Tax would be a bad unbanning for paper Legacy, for instance. And I have spent time in various forums debating against its unbanning) and it provides good discussion. Provided that the players are willing to discuss, read, and listen to one another.
The interaction totally escaped me.
Giving it serious thought however you would need to be able to cycle into a mirror every 20 mana though. It is a good idea but may not work.
Any one confused by this here is the interaction.
Cast channel make 5 mana cast mirror kill yourself for more mana. Reset your life to 20 shuffle up draw 7 new cards, and hope for either another mirror or a red mana and a bane fire, continue looping untill you have the aformentioned banefire.
You could pick Essence Scatter or Rise From the Grave and I'd respect either pick, because both have their own justifications. However, any other card from this pack would be 100%, flat out wrong. These are the top two options by far. A distant 3rd and 4th best options would be the Dread Warlock and Ice Cage.
With that said, my personal preference would be for taking the Essence Scatter, simply because it will make my deck 100% of the time when [blue] is anything more than a splashed color. And after the Air Elemental, I'm really going to try to make [blue] a main color.
I think rise from the grave is the right choice as it becomes a surrogate for highly valued bomby creatures. You will probably get another shot at essence scatter down the road and definitely several more opportunities to grab a recluse.
So, I love the new homework/quiz feature. However, I'm bummed that it seems to be cutting into the commentary on the rest of the column. I thought this weeks thesis/theme--reading/misreading villian's telegraphed signals and how to play around/into possible yet highly unlikely cards was great.
Great column and analysis as usual. I have to say that I like it more when you lose or limp your way to victory. It makes for a better story and your frank recount of what you could've/should've done is often enlightening.
Plus, since I'll never beat you again, it makes me happy.
The question I think is whether your going to play black or not. By taking the Air Elemental and a black card then you close some options for pick three. If pick three has a really good GR or W card and mediocre black and blue cards then you could end up with three cards of three colors in the first three picks. If you grab the Essence Scatter and then get passed a really good GR or W card then you can happily take it.
Its not that cutting the blue card sends a signal. Its that you are keeping open color options until you see a better signal.
Now...if you consider Rise in the bomb status then grab it. If I cast rise on "My own Seige Gang Commander, Opponent's Ant Queen, Opponent's Baneslayer, and Opponent's Behemoth that was discarded" and that happened to me recently I might agree. My Rise stories have been he casts his bomb, I dont have removal, and the bomb beats me. So Rise for me is in the good but not bomb pile.
I'd pick ball lightning prob just for the (not so high, i know) ticket value, but disregarding that yeah, i agree with essence scatter. you don't want to branch out in another color yet without some incentive. Black Knight commits u to heavy black, which with the double blue air elemental and 2 picks in is not advisable. You're also sending down a dread warlock and rise from the grave, potentially creating a bad signal. the only other possibility is the swordsmith, but its just a solid creature and not worth picking up yet.
Personally I quite like ice cage here, then again I don't draft much. I see it as an essence scatter that you don't have to hold open mana for, there aren't many broken citp abilities in M10 that I can think of so I'd probably go with ice cage.
Thanks for the wrap-up -- seeing these 'test draws' in game situations is an immensely useful exercise. I also have a hard time mulliganing hands with 3-4 lands unless they're obviously, actively awful; I think it's one of the areas of my game that most needs tightening up.
As for the exercise -- to my mind, the choices that you could make any real argument for are Essence Scatter and Rise from the Grave. Scatter dominates the other blue cards in the pack (I'm a big Horned Turtle fan but he may well table here); likewise, Rise is just flat-out better than either black creature (especially considering potential splash considerations). None of the White or Red cards is good enough to consider picking them over the choices already presented, and I'd argue that Deadly Recluse isn't either; it does a reasonable job of holding the ground, but it's at best going to trade with an opposing attacker (or in rare cases a defender), and it's not especially better at that than e.g. Turtle is.
And between those, I take Rise every time. It's not a bomb, no, but it's a power uncommon -- much, much better than Zombify was because of the obvious synergies with its color. I'm also a huge U/B fan in M10, and given that you're only passing mediocre black cards to your left so far you've got a good shot of getting back at least some good stuff in pack 2. Rarity factors into the choice, too; based solely on probability, your chances of seeing another Scatter are much better than your chances of seeing another Rise, and even if the two were comparable in power then the lessened chance of seeing another would probably tip me towards Rise (which is probably worthy of a note all its own sometime, but not here).
Incidentally, with an uncommon missing out of the pack, it's interesting to speculate what the person to your right took here. The uncommons I can reasonably see taking over the cards in this pack are Air Elemental, Armored Ascension, Consume Spirit, Dragon Whelp, Fireball, Goblin Artillery, Mind Control, Overrun, Pyroclasm, Serra Angel, and Sleep. I'd personally take Rise over several of those (Armored Ascension, Whelp, maybe Artillery and maybe maybe Consume or Pyroclasm), but I can easily see the argument the other way. What does that tell us? Frankly, not much; mostly that our daddy (most likely) took a good card. Down the road it might be possible to narrow it down a bit, but it's unlikely to matter unless you end up playing them, at which point it might be worth looking at this list again.
Also, these packs do a fine job of showing how totally irrelevant signaling (especially negative signaling) is in the first couple of packs. If pack 2 had had Planar Cleansing in it and a missing uncommon, or say Serra Angel and a missing common, *that* would be a reasonable signal that White is open; but the lack of good Green cards doesn't mean that anyone took a Green card; it may well mean that there are no good Green cards in the pack. Taking Essence Scatter doesn't send a 'stay out of blue' signal because your opponent doesn't know that you took a Blue card, and leaving it in the pack doesn't send a 'Blue is open' signal, because frankly Scatter just isn't good enough to signal with. The core mantra this early should be Take The Best Card -- and that's Rise by a wide margin, IMHO.
I don't feel Essence Scatter is going to make or break the deck. Rise can be a huge tempo advantage, or BOMB really depending on what has happened to your (or your oppoenent's) Bomb critter. I would also think I'm more likely to see an Essence Scatter in the next few packs then I would be to see another Rise.
Things I have "Risen" to break open games:
My own Seige Gang Commander
Opponent's Ant Queen
Opponent's Baneslayer
Opponent's Behemoth that was discarded.
Granted, Essence Scatter is one of the way to get that stuff into the GY in the first place, but Rise has a bigger "Bomby" feel to it while Essence Scatter is "safe" and I think sub-opt in this pick in this pack. I would look for Essence at picks 4-6...
Definitely Essence Scatter for me. I'm pretty much always looking to be UW or UB in this format, depending on which removal I see (if it's red removal then I'll take it, but somewhat begrudgingly) so sending a stay-out-of-blue signal seems like the plan. If I were taking a black card, it would be Black Knight over Rise - the sorcery has very frequently done not very much for me, essentially acting as a more expensive disentomb.
I'd like the reasoning on that, because I'd pick dread warlock over black knight pretty much every time. Without evasion a 2/2 gets outclassed pretty quick, and the pro-white and first strike are only marginally useful, and the double black means it can be pretty hard to cast on turn two when it would be best.
Rise from the grave looks alright and is an easy splash, so it doesn't matter much that you're passing two good black cards, but I think essence scatter is a good enough pick and you're likely to get either horned turtle or ice cage on the wheel. Deadly recluse is alright because then you're cutting green entirely from the pack, but it's not a great pull toward that color. Scatter lets you grab a solid card and wait for a better signal before jumping into another color.
"A more logical course of events is that the player base starts going wholesale on this much like we did towards the end of Necropotence's life span, and get the format splits prematurely."
I am fully aware that cards will not be banned in classic besides Gleemox. I just wanted to point out that for ME and MY thoughts this is not only a very impactful card but also one that a lot of players will dislike because of it's unique effect. That effect being an uncounterable Stonerain on ANY land.
And before any one says it's counterable i realize that Stifle, Trickbind and other cards will actually be able to keep your land.
Thanks for the time.
I personally like the Essence Scatter. Rise is good but you dont know what colors will be open so taking a strong blue card and keeping options open for pick 3-5 signals seems like a safer play.
If the rise is instead removal of some kind then I would go for it.
I am still firm to believe that the scatter is the best pick, but if that wasn't there then the spider would be the next choice. It is the only card that deals with the elemental and the only green card in the pack, if you were to choose Rise( and i like rise alot ) you are still passing black knight which is by far the next best card. I don't see how rise is worth going into another color with the next best cards in the pack being of that color.
I too first started playing magic because of the artwork, simply amazing!
I admire great artwork to this day and collect cards based on artwork, tho admittedly, I have grown to focus more on the card text and casting cost more than artwork over time.
Donato Giancola is also one of my favorite artists as Glory is one of my all time favorite pieces of artwork (as you can probably tell from my avatar), I have a HUGE collection of of Glory's, many of which signed by Donato when I had the pleasure of meeting him at a Grand Prix some time ago.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Stoic Angel definitely jumped out to me as great pieces of artwork when I first saw those cards. I hope Mr. Volkan Baga will continue producing beautiful artworks for Magic and I hope to meet him some day to get some of my cards signed.
Thank you Nafiz for this interview and writeup and thank you Mr. Baga for doing this interview!
I will agree on this - I didn't notice that Whiffy had mentioned bannings in the article. Bad Whiffy - you know better.
___________
I agree also that it's absurd to talk about Strip Mine in unrestricted terms...
___________
But that doesn't change the fact that there are times when the comparisons work and there are times when they don't. For example, as a base for good card interactions, sometimes using Vintage works really well, and other times the lack of significant mana acceleration makes the deck completely ineffective. How else has a card like Mind's Desire escaped even the slightest hint of restriction when in Vintage it is so busted it's restriction was pre-ordained? Look no further than Classic != Vintage. The same can be said about any number of comparisons between Classic and Vintage and Classic and Legacy.
___________
And of course it will be possible to beat a deck that recurs Strip Mine and Mana Denial. It was possible to make a deck that beat 4x Flash too, and 4x Necro, but that has never been a good reason not to take action in a meta. The problem here is that even restriction of Strip Mine *Might* not resolve any possible problems. 1 Strip Mine might be more than enough. If the only decks are Mana Denial starring restricted Strip Mine, and decks built specifically to defeat said strategy, there it literally nowhere else to go (short of some ridiculous restrictions) - other than to simply not play Classic that is.
___________
Let's put it another way. Imagine it's 2007, and MED1 was coming out, and in MED 1 there was Force of Will, Mana Drain, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt and Time Vault and (somehow) Tinker and Voltaic Key were also available. But no other powerhouse card cards... That format would be terrible, right? No amount of restrictions would keep the format from evolving into Blue Based Time Vault/Tinker decks and decks running cards specifically to beat said Blue Decks.
___________
In essence, I'm saying that I'm not comfortable with the fact we are getting Strip Mine ahead of any relevant artifact acceleration. If Sol Ring and Mana Vault were online, I might be much less hesitant, and much less so if all the jewelery was here. Looking into my crystal ball, I see a chance that someone develops a classic deck abusing strip mine that the meta is powerless to react to in any meaningful way. And jumping ship to Legacy isn't the answer.
What a great read, thanks for it! Always catch the article, but this was a treat. I was one of those who joined for the art, when Tempest just released.
Very interesting interview :)
personally i would like to have the turtle over the counterspell. the scatter will for sure be a 1 for 1 but the turtle can hold of x/1's all day long and help staunch the bleeding.
the deck currently cant solidly say that the scatter will be strong and there is a much higher chance of scatter tabling then the turtle.
In the Bomb-Removal-Creatures heirarchy, Ride from the grave is just on the cusp of being a solid bomb. Its the least expected card in M10 Limited, but it provides the most swing when played. The Essence Scatter, however, gives you something to do in the early turns while waiting for the Air Elemental to get going. I wouldn't really pick the Scatter as early as pick 2.
As other have already stated, Ride from the Grave is much better than any other black offerings from that pack.
I enjoyed this. I'd love to see more interviews on this site :D
I guess I don't understand any of the discussion then. If we are to simply say that Classic is its own format and draw no comparisons, then how do you even make a case that Strip Mine is worth restriction without having it played in the format? [This is obviously an ad absurdium point]
We have the benefit of drawing comparisons and we should, within context. I never said that Classic = Vintage, I was simply giving a point of reference. I also DID say that sometimes searching out a Mine will be the right play. My point (without using Vintage references) is that it is possible to build a deck that can beat Strip Mine recursion because the deck recurring the Mine is probably not doing anything to win the game (ever held back lands knowing an Armageddon was coming?). Classic also does not have one of the other cards that makes Strip Mine strategies good, Mishra's Workshop. The Shop allows a deck to develop while delaying its opponent. Ancient Tomb and the soon-to-be-online City of Traitors are NOT good enough to make this a viable strategy for very long.
Please don't forget that, the entire premise of my post (and I would imagine many other responses) was in response to the author essentially saying that 'with enough player support Strip Mine could get banned.' If bannings are not an option, again, the point is moot. Arguing the need for a Classic.5-type of format would be more to the author's point, I suppose.
There will always be players that feel strongly one way or another (I believe Land Tax would be a bad unbanning for paper Legacy, for instance. And I have spent time in various forums debating against its unbanning) and it provides good discussion. Provided that the players are willing to discuss, read, and listen to one another.
An opinion is just that...
-FB...
The interaction totally escaped me.
Giving it serious thought however you would need to be able to cycle into a mirror every 20 mana though. It is a good idea but may not work.
Any one confused by this here is the interaction.
Cast channel make 5 mana cast mirror kill yourself for more mana. Reset your life to 20 shuffle up draw 7 new cards, and hope for either another mirror or a red mana and a bane fire, continue looping untill you have the aformentioned banefire.
No mention of lich's mirror in the 4x channel deck? Think on it...
You could pick Essence Scatter or Rise From the Grave and I'd respect either pick, because both have their own justifications. However, any other card from this pack would be 100%, flat out wrong. These are the top two options by far. A distant 3rd and 4th best options would be the Dread Warlock and Ice Cage.
With that said, my personal preference would be for taking the Essence Scatter, simply because it will make my deck 100% of the time when [blue] is anything more than a splashed color. And after the Air Elemental, I'm really going to try to make [blue] a main color.
Ball Lightning. . . duh.
I think rise from the grave is the right choice as it becomes a surrogate for highly valued bomby creatures. You will probably get another shot at essence scatter down the road and definitely several more opportunities to grab a recluse.
So, I love the new homework/quiz feature. However, I'm bummed that it seems to be cutting into the commentary on the rest of the column. I thought this weeks thesis/theme--reading/misreading villian's telegraphed signals and how to play around/into possible yet highly unlikely cards was great.
Great column and analysis as usual. I have to say that I like it more when you lose or limp your way to victory. It makes for a better story and your frank recount of what you could've/should've done is often enlightening.
Plus, since I'll never beat you again, it makes me happy.
The question I think is whether your going to play black or not. By taking the Air Elemental and a black card then you close some options for pick three. If pick three has a really good GR or W card and mediocre black and blue cards then you could end up with three cards of three colors in the first three picks. If you grab the Essence Scatter and then get passed a really good GR or W card then you can happily take it.
Its not that cutting the blue card sends a signal. Its that you are keeping open color options until you see a better signal.
Now...if you consider Rise in the bomb status then grab it. If I cast rise on "My own Seige Gang Commander, Opponent's Ant Queen, Opponent's Baneslayer, and Opponent's Behemoth that was discarded" and that happened to me recently I might agree. My Rise stories have been he casts his bomb, I dont have removal, and the bomb beats me. So Rise for me is in the good but not bomb pile.
-M
I'd pick ball lightning prob just for the (not so high, i know) ticket value, but disregarding that yeah, i agree with essence scatter. you don't want to branch out in another color yet without some incentive. Black Knight commits u to heavy black, which with the double blue air elemental and 2 picks in is not advisable. You're also sending down a dread warlock and rise from the grave, potentially creating a bad signal. the only other possibility is the swordsmith, but its just a solid creature and not worth picking up yet.
Personally I quite like ice cage here, then again I don't draft much. I see it as an essence scatter that you don't have to hold open mana for, there aren't many broken citp abilities in M10 that I can think of so I'd probably go with ice cage.
Clap, Clap.
Seriously. Although this has almost nothing to do with game play it was a real treat to read.
Thank you for setting up the interview, and thank you Mr.Baga if you are reading this.
You put it better than I did. I agree.
Thanks for the wrap-up -- seeing these 'test draws' in game situations is an immensely useful exercise. I also have a hard time mulliganing hands with 3-4 lands unless they're obviously, actively awful; I think it's one of the areas of my game that most needs tightening up.
As for the exercise -- to my mind, the choices that you could make any real argument for are Essence Scatter and Rise from the Grave. Scatter dominates the other blue cards in the pack (I'm a big Horned Turtle fan but he may well table here); likewise, Rise is just flat-out better than either black creature (especially considering potential splash considerations). None of the White or Red cards is good enough to consider picking them over the choices already presented, and I'd argue that Deadly Recluse isn't either; it does a reasonable job of holding the ground, but it's at best going to trade with an opposing attacker (or in rare cases a defender), and it's not especially better at that than e.g. Turtle is.
And between those, I take Rise every time. It's not a bomb, no, but it's a power uncommon -- much, much better than Zombify was because of the obvious synergies with its color. I'm also a huge U/B fan in M10, and given that you're only passing mediocre black cards to your left so far you've got a good shot of getting back at least some good stuff in pack 2. Rarity factors into the choice, too; based solely on probability, your chances of seeing another Scatter are much better than your chances of seeing another Rise, and even if the two were comparable in power then the lessened chance of seeing another would probably tip me towards Rise (which is probably worthy of a note all its own sometime, but not here).
Incidentally, with an uncommon missing out of the pack, it's interesting to speculate what the person to your right took here. The uncommons I can reasonably see taking over the cards in this pack are Air Elemental, Armored Ascension, Consume Spirit, Dragon Whelp, Fireball, Goblin Artillery, Mind Control, Overrun, Pyroclasm, Serra Angel, and Sleep. I'd personally take Rise over several of those (Armored Ascension, Whelp, maybe Artillery and maybe maybe Consume or Pyroclasm), but I can easily see the argument the other way. What does that tell us? Frankly, not much; mostly that our daddy (most likely) took a good card. Down the road it might be possible to narrow it down a bit, but it's unlikely to matter unless you end up playing them, at which point it might be worth looking at this list again.
Also, these packs do a fine job of showing how totally irrelevant signaling (especially negative signaling) is in the first couple of packs. If pack 2 had had Planar Cleansing in it and a missing uncommon, or say Serra Angel and a missing common, *that* would be a reasonable signal that White is open; but the lack of good Green cards doesn't mean that anyone took a Green card; it may well mean that there are no good Green cards in the pack. Taking Essence Scatter doesn't send a 'stay out of blue' signal because your opponent doesn't know that you took a Blue card, and leaving it in the pack doesn't send a 'Blue is open' signal, because frankly Scatter just isn't good enough to signal with. The core mantra this early should be Take The Best Card -- and that's Rise by a wide margin, IMHO.
I don't feel Essence Scatter is going to make or break the deck. Rise can be a huge tempo advantage, or BOMB really depending on what has happened to your (or your oppoenent's) Bomb critter. I would also think I'm more likely to see an Essence Scatter in the next few packs then I would be to see another Rise.
Things I have "Risen" to break open games:
My own Seige Gang Commander
Opponent's Ant Queen
Opponent's Baneslayer
Opponent's Behemoth that was discarded.
Granted, Essence Scatter is one of the way to get that stuff into the GY in the first place, but Rise has a bigger "Bomby" feel to it while Essence Scatter is "safe" and I think sub-opt in this pick in this pack. I would look for Essence at picks 4-6...
Definitely Essence Scatter for me. I'm pretty much always looking to be UW or UB in this format, depending on which removal I see (if it's red removal then I'll take it, but somewhat begrudgingly) so sending a stay-out-of-blue signal seems like the plan. If I were taking a black card, it would be Black Knight over Rise - the sorcery has very frequently done not very much for me, essentially acting as a more expensive disentomb.
I'd like the reasoning on that, because I'd pick dread warlock over black knight pretty much every time. Without evasion a 2/2 gets outclassed pretty quick, and the pro-white and first strike are only marginally useful, and the double black means it can be pretty hard to cast on turn two when it would be best.
Rise from the grave looks alright and is an easy splash, so it doesn't matter much that you're passing two good black cards, but I think essence scatter is a good enough pick and you're likely to get either horned turtle or ice cage on the wheel. Deadly recluse is alright because then you're cutting green entirely from the pack, but it's not a great pull toward that color. Scatter lets you grab a solid card and wait for a better signal before jumping into another color.
I then go on to say
"A more logical course of events is that the player base starts going wholesale on this much like we did towards the end of Necropotence's life span, and get the format splits prematurely."
I am fully aware that cards will not be banned in classic besides Gleemox. I just wanted to point out that for ME and MY thoughts this is not only a very impactful card but also one that a lot of players will dislike because of it's unique effect. That effect being an uncounterable Stonerain on ANY land.
And before any one says it's counterable i realize that Stifle, Trickbind and other cards will actually be able to keep your land.
Thanks for the time.
I personally like the Essence Scatter. Rise is good but you dont know what colors will be open so taking a strong blue card and keeping options open for pick 3-5 signals seems like a safer play.
If the rise is instead removal of some kind then I would go for it.
-M
I am still firm to believe that the scatter is the best pick, but if that wasn't there then the spider would be the next choice. It is the only card that deals with the elemental and the only green card in the pack, if you were to choose Rise( and i like rise alot ) you are still passing black knight which is by far the next best card. I don't see how rise is worth going into another color with the next best cards in the pack being of that color.
The winners of those moxes should get em signed =x