[MtG] [HOU] Hour of Devastation Spoilers - Week 1

[bury the year]

Djeru will definitely be a roleplayer in every superfriends deck from now on. Yeah, he doesn't do a ton on his own as a commander, but he's great in the 99. Which I think makes sense with his character.

 

these cards work well with any land that produces more than one mana. In standard or limited it's just bad color filtering most of the time.

Stats are better than your average mana dork, too. Hope Tender can at least survive on offense if need be.

 

 

Some more for y'all. The exerters seem like mostly Limited fodder, but River Hoopoe is a great mana sink for EDH: if you play Azure Mage, you can play this bird. And Claim // Fame may have serious Modern potential to get back DS? I don't know, could happen.

 

EDIT: Huh. Judging by the number crunch, there's no room for the full 10 uncommon bicolor cards this time around. Maybe we'll only get 7, to represent the Amonkhetu still fighting against Nicol Bolas?

[Chaosix]

I'm very conflicted whether or not i could use The Scarab God in a non-zombie commander deck.

Should I?

[Forest Fire]

I'm very conflicted whether or not i could use The Scarab God in a non-zombie commander deck.

Should I?

it doesn't seem like a good idea, but you can try it if you really want

[bury the year]

I'm very conflicted whether or not i could use The Scarab God in a non-zombie commander deck.

Should I?

You should be fine. He doesn't even need a ton of zombies to work well. You can instead play him as UB control: kill your opponents' annoying creatures, then reanimate them for your own purposes. Either way, he's a very obviously powerful commander, so don't be surprised when people focus hate on you.

 

Speaking of obviously powerful commanders...

 

 

Woof. Good thing Razaketh is closer to Griselbrand than Kophothed in terms of power level. Don't have a deck for him, but having a sac outlet and repeatable tutor engine at once is pretty nice. May have to build some sort of reanimation shell to use him in...

 

And some others:

 

 

 

Reshaping Khenra 1G

Creature - Jackal Wizard {R}

When ~ enters the battlefield, choose target creature. You may have that creature get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is ~'s power.

Eternalize 4GG (4GG, Exile this card from your graveyard: Create a token that's a copy of it, except it's a 4/4 black Zombie Jackal Wizard with no mana cost. Eternalize only as a sorcery.)

2/2

 

Does anyone else want to keep reading Khenra as "Kendra?" Because I do. Finally, two new green goodies.

 

 

Uncage the Menagerie XGG

Sorcery {M}

Search your library for up to X creature cards with different names that each have converted mana cost X, reveal them, put them into your hand, then shuffle your library.

 

It can fetch both Vizier of Remedies and Devoted Druid, but I don't see anyone playing this over CoCo. It pushes you in two directions: you'd usually want to tutor a bunch of cheap creatures, but this rewards you by giving you more expensive ones.

 

 

And the third of the cycle. Unlike the first two, this one's good to play in multiples. Could it see Modern Mono-G Stompy play? Not having any devotion makes it suspect, but who knows...

[evilfusion]

I do rather like Razaketh, although he's definitely something you'd need to build around, either with token producing effects, revival effects, or similar. He makes Dread Wanderer even better, I can say that much, and I like that he tutors ANY card.

 

Heck, Bontu would probably work well with Razaketh...which feels incredibly ironic in a way.

 

I also really like Uncage the Menagerie. Very powerful card in general, and the fun part is that the more you pay into it, the more different cards you can grab, although it also doesn't particularly encourage you paying TOO much, because say you treated X as 4. You're running (up to) 4 different creatures with CMC 4? Well, I know Green of all colors can pull that off, but it seems like a weird thing to be doing, at least if we assume you cast this and get the maximum payout for it. I expect that X will most often be treated as 2 or 3, with the occasional higher number, but with less creatures being added.

 

Rhonas' Last Stand is beautiful, because it's 1 cheaper than Bontu's Last Reckoning and Oketra's Last Mercy, can be cast in multiples without being redundant, can combo with Token-producing effects like Annointed Procession, and it's in the color that specializes in producing non-land mana. Druid of the Cowl, etc say hi.

[Poc]

Eh, in reality anything you can do with Razaketh you can probably do with sidisi (cough ad naseum cough) and shes 3 mana cheaper. I feel he fits better in the 99 than as a commander since hes so expensive.

[Simping For Hina]

The two bears seem terrible

[Flame Dragon]

Thoughts on cards

 

Claim is weird as a black card. Yes black is the color of reanimation, but reanimating small things is normally whites thing. Card is fine.

 

The 3 exerts seem fine for limited.

 

Bird seems way to slow in limited assuming it stays aggressive which exert and afflict suggest it will.

 

Last Stand seems like it can be very powerful.

 

I don't like Uncage. In standard it's too slow and in older formats you have better card draw and tutor options. Though I honestly can still see myself playing it. Just unexciting for me.

 

Earthshaker might be good enough for constructed. They are clearly aiming for it to get there.

 

Razaketh seems SUPER powerful. A repeatable Sac outlet (though you really aren't going to go off with him), a good reanimation target, and a tutor all in one looks to be a super highly played commander card.

 

Rebuilding Khenra is pretty lame. Like, it looks pretty strong, but is still lame.

 

Djeru will definitely be a roleplayer in every superfriends deck from now on. Yeah, he doesn't do a ton on his own as a commander, but he's great in the 99. Which I think makes sense with his character.

 

 

EDIT: Huh. Judging by the number crunch, there's no room for the full 10 uncommon bicolor cards this time around. Maybe we'll only get 7, to represent the Amonkhetu still fighting against Nicol Bolas?

 

I don't doubt Dejeru is strong (though given the Ixalan leak this might change), but he is SO lame.

 

That is actually really cool.

 

 

I'm very conflicted whether or not i could use The Scarab God in a non-zombie commander deck.

Should I?

 

I'm going to consider him for me Phenax deck since mill god will provide plenty of bodies for him to eternalize.

[evilfusion]

There are admittedly some PAINFULLY mediocre/bad cards in this set, but that's kind of normal for all sets, I imagine.

 

For example, Fervent Paincaster looks AWFUL. Tap to ping player for 1, or tap and exert to ping creature for 1.

 

Actually, I'm not particularly impressed by most of the Exert cards, either in Amonkhet or Hour of Devastation. Most of them, their abilities are just "okay", but because of Exert's downside, they come off as even worse. I realize that the focus when designing them was probably to minimize how often players could "cheat" the downside and make the card broken. For example, giving Vigilance to those creatures would essentially mean "Free Exert effects, no downsides", and there are plenty of cards in the set and outside of it that untap creatures to nullify the downsides.

 

At the same time, it makes working with some of them really fickle, and less a decision of "should I exert this?" and more "Should I ever consider using this, ever?".

 

And on the flip side of the spectrum, you have Glorybringer, the only card I know of that gives us the question of "When would you NOT exert this?"

[Simping For Hina]

Best card of the set, hands down.

[Flame Dragon]

There are admittedly some PAINFULLY mediocre/bad cards in this set, but that's kind of normal for all sets, I imagine.

 

For example, Fervent Paincaster looks AWFUL. Tap to ping player for 1, or tap and exert to ping creature for 1.

 

Actually, I'm not particularly impressed by most of the Exert cards, either in Amonkhet or Hour of Devastation. Most of them, their abilities are just "okay", but because of Exert's downside, they come off as even worse. I realize that the focus when designing them was probably to minimize how often players could "cheat" the downside and make the card broken. For example, giving Vigilance to those creatures would essentially mean "Free Exert effects, no downsides", and there are plenty of cards in the set and outside of it that untap creatures to nullify the downsides.

 

At the same time, it makes working with some of them really fickle, and less a decision of "should I exert this?" and more "Should I ever consider using this, ever?".

 

And on the flip side of the spectrum, you have Glorybringer, the only card I know of that gives us the question of "When would you NOT exert this?"

 

Exert isn't really a mechanic that has a ton of legs outside of limited. That being said the Angel and the Lion both seem really sweet from this set.

 

Best card of the set, hands down.

Yea, this is really sweet.

[Poc]

Stifle on a flying body? I can dig it. This might give U/W flash some legs again in standard.

[Forest Fire]

i wonder if we're gonna get another cycle of cards that do things when they're cycled.

[NeoRWBY65]

I was trying to figure out why it has flash when the only time it is using the ability is when it cycles, then I figured out that you hold up the mana and only cast it if they have nothing to counter with it

[Forest Fire]

I was trying to figure out why it has flash when the only time it is using the ability is when it cycles, then I figured out that you hold up the mana and only cast it if they have nothing to counter with it

oh wow, i just realized the cast cost and cycle cost on him is the same.

[evilfusion]

I was trying to figure out why it has flash when the only time it is using the ability is when it cycles, then I figured out that you hold up the mana and only cast it if they have nothing to counter with it

 

Options, I imagine. Plus, its name is "Nimble" Obstructionist, so they're making it "fast" by giving it Flash, but cycling is how it obstructs.

 

It's similar to why they gave Samut (creature) so many "speedy" keywords, particularly Flash. She also got Double Strike, Vigilance, Haste, and gave other things haste.

[bury the year]

On to Friday! If I remember correctly, we're unlikely to get spoilers over the weekend, so this is the last day stuff should be posted to this thread in that case.

 

 

Diabolic Edict or Coercion, but too expensive for either effect. Shame, art's cool.

 

EDIT: None of y'all have responded yet, so have s'more! (Also, Farm // Market is one of my favorite card names ever.)

 

[Rodrigo]

The aftermath cards in this set sure are strong. And the torment cycle is a pretty nice way of doing punisher cards.

[Forest Fire]

i want to put all 3 torments into yahenni edh, but i don't know what i'll take out.

all of them look really good in limited, to me.

[Flame Dragon]

All the torment cards seem solid in limited. Though I think the rare is a really underwhelming card.

 

Farm to Market are both solid cards, though only the Struggle half on Struggle to Survive is good.

[bury the year]

All the torment cards seem solid in limited. Though I think the rare is a really underwhelming card.

 

Farm to Market are both solid cards, though only the Struggle half on Struggle to Survive is good.

Survive hoses eternalize and aftermath for Limited, though. The former's particularly important, since common eternalize seem to be at least six mana and you can cast both Struggle and Survive on T5.

 

Although yeah, both of these aren't good enough for Constructed.

[Flame Dragon]

Survive hoses eternalize and aftermath for Limited, though. The former's particularly important, since common eternalize seem to be at least six mana and you can cast both Struggle and Survive on T5.

 

Although yeah, both of these aren't good enough for Constructed.

I feel like the value of stopping the opponent from using graveyard things won't be as relevant as you'd expect. That isn't to say it won't be, but I feel like it won't be nearly as good as you'd expect.

 

Also, I realized something really cool with the Lili demons.

[Poc]

Holy, Torment of Scarabs is nuts in limited. Anyone remember stab wound? Doomfall is kind of meh and struggle is half decent removal for standard. Nothing super exciting this round though.

[Delibirb]

Too bad Griselbrand's cmc screws up the pattern.

[Forest Fire]

Too bad Griselbrand's cmc screws up the pattern.

unless the next demon has a mana cost with bbbbb in it.