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http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=724.msg6695#new

Well, gifts is a no surprise. It has been on the edge of being banned for a long time now, although i was a in favour of not banning it, i can understand. Its a game turning card.

Trinisphere: ABout time, to test this one!
Wheel of fortune: bit more dangerous that time twister, mainly because of 1) aggro, 2) availability/price

Please don't band SDT!

comment and discuss

Will the rating system change to Planeswalker Points, too?

good question  ... no, we will be old-fashioned using the skill-based rating system also in the future

I'm still not sure how I feel about the PW points, however, a bit when like the rules (DMG on stack) changed, I think this is one of the things we should pick up, though...

I really like Innistrad. The powerlevel overall is not too high so the "goodstuff" -decks don't get much (pretty much nothing outside of the Chaserare Mage), but we get tons of goodies for decks-that-aren't-decks yet and some tier 3 strategies get a nice boost. A deckbuilders set (and hopefully block) for sure.

Well, I don't too tribal.. too creature based. Anyways, opinions are opinions

Divine Reckoning
Cost:     2{W}{W}
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     Each player chooses a creature he or she controls. Destroy the rest.
Flashback {5}{W}{W}

I don't see this as a constructed playable. Definitely not a HL playable where the card quality is so high that any lone creature is able to win the game pretty easily, but don't even think this is good enough for block constructed.

At first, a worse WOG, but then if you think of oath and decks that rely on a single fatty, this ain't that bad, still very limited in HL. But i can see it being marginally played within these types of decks.

Intangible Virtue
Cost:     1{W}
Type:     Enchantment
Rules Text:     Creature tokens you control get +1/+1 and have vigilance.

I still have a bias when it comes to token decks, and this does look quite good. Vigilance is actually a very relevant ability as you can attack with everything witout worring about dying to removal + backswing, so this is not just a cheaper Anthem.

Haven't seen a tokenmania deck in while, but definitely playable in that deck.

Stony Silence
Cost:     1{W}
Type:     Enchantment
Rules Text:     Activated abilities of artifacts can't be activated.

This has the potential of being really good, so might as well pick up one.

Yeap, it has an interesting, but very limited potential. Probably decks still prefer things like pridemage, unfortunately...

Cackling Counterpart
Cost:     1{U}{U}
Type:     Instant
Rules Text:     Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of target creature you control.
Flashback {5}{U}{U}

Pretty cool because it's an instant. Pretty annoying, because it can target only your stuff. Flashback is also quite nice. Should see play if you have some nice targets, too bad most heavyish blue decks don't. Also Phantasmal Image and Phyrexian Metamorph are just better, so you might actually want to have a dude that you want to copy instead of this.

the double U hurts this a bit, but could be very interesting, but i think it won't see that much play. Phyrexian metaphor, like you said, is probably better.

Forbidden Alchemy
Cost:     2{U}
Type:     Instant
Rules Text:     Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
Flashback {6}{B}

Reanimator. Probably just too weak in everywhere else.

If this costed 1U would have definitely be great, even in reanimator tehre is cheaper stuff, IMO. Also the flashback is probably never going to see play, too bad, because this really had a great potential

Laboratory Maniac
Cost:     2{U}
Type:     Creature - Human Wizard
Pow/Tgh:     2/2
Rules Text:     If you would draw a card while your library has no cards in it, you win the game instead.

Has potential to be a wincon in a combo deck. So, pick one up, when you have the opportunity.

Quite cute, it screams to be broken, i thought of doomsday, tainted pact, oath of druids.. anyone else has any ideas?

Lantern Spirit
Cost:     2{U}
Type:     Creature - Spirit
Pow/Tgh:     2/1
Rules Text:     Flying
{U}: Return Lantern Spirit to its owner's hand.

"Damage on the stack and then.. oh, right."

Not that it would be playable even before M10 rules change.

Made me lol

Memory's Journey
Cost:     1{U}
Type:     Instant
Rules Text:     Target player shuffles up to three target cards from his or her graveyard into his or her library.
Flashback {G}

Strictly better than Krosan Reclamation. Pitches to FoW even.

But a worse gae's  blessing IMO.

Rooftop Storm
Cost:     5U
Type:     Enchantment
Rules Text:     You may pay {0} rather than pay the mana cost for Zombie creature spells you cast.

Thanks, but no thanks. I rather pay BB or something and not waste a card.

Incredibly flavourful, incredibly bad!

Snapcaster Mage
Cost:     1{U}
Type:     Creature - Human Wizard
Pow/Tgh:     2/1
Rules Text:     Flash
When Snapcaster Mage enters the battlefield, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost.

Yeah. The obvious best card of the set. It's actually even better in HL, because it gives you more options because of the variety.

Yeap, powerful card is powerful card! And again recoup on a stick... a better recoup!

Army of the Damned
Cost:     5{B}{B}{B}
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     Put thirteen 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens onto the battlefield tapped.
Flashback {7}{B}{B}{B}

Damn.

If there is a way to cheat the CMC, this is a decent card to exploit. Not a bad idea to get one just in case.

Would LOL if someone pulled this one in GP or other tournament...

Diregraf Ghoul
Cost:     {B}
Type:     Creature - Zombie
Pow/Tgh:     2/2
Rules Text:     Diregraf Ghoul enters the battlefield tapped.

This is good in black based aggro. Not that it makes it a real deck, but hey it's still a decent creature.[/quote]

Another pretty good 2 power 1st drop, B ain't the best mana to have in the first turn for aggro, but still quite decent... and still quite mad they keep printing these... =/

Heartless Summoning
Cost:     1{B}
Type:     Enchantment
Rules Text:     Creature spells you cast cost {2} less to cast.
Creatures you control get -1/-1.

Purely for combo purposes. This effect with this drawback is not worth of a card.

Agreed, combo material only. Aggro doesn't want these... and there is other stuff to ramp your fatties

Liliana of the Veil
Cost:     1{B}{B}
Type:     Planeswalker - Liliana
Pow/Tgh:     3
Rules Text:     +1: Each player discards a card.
-2: Target player sacrifices a creature.
-6: Separate all permanents target player controls into two piles. That player sacrifices all permanents in the pile of his or her choice.

Not entirely sure how much Reanimator wants an enabler on turn three, but this does offer other services. Turn three edict into enabling your reanimation is pretty good especially when this still sticks around to maybe edict again. All the while she does some minor, but relevant, disruption to boot. Just make sure the first ability isn't too symmetrical and she should be pretty good.

Not great, but not bad. Cheap PW and PW are "always" great.

Unburial Rites
Cost:     4{B}
Type:     Sorcery
Rules Text:     Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Flashback {3}{W}

Combo decks. Dump your deck to the 'yard and use this to proxy Dread Return. It sucks having to actually pay mana (and four is a lot), but it's way better than what we have currently.

It seems playable, i think this has a shot, yes.

Not that it has anything to do with Highlander, but here goes:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/161b

Jace and stoneforge are banned in extended.
Mental mistep is also bannd in ext and legacy -> who would have known?! o.O

Also a bunch of stuff was banned to avoid 3rd turn wins/combos

combo potential only, IMO. but quite interesting, indeed.

I also wonder if this:

Sorcery 3R   
Each instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost.
Flashback 4{R}

can be of any good for combo. probably too slow.

Diregraf ghoul
hate it
That's is all...

Actually it isn't..

garuk 3.0, a big yes! the 3G mana cost is really sexy!
And snapcaster will be very useful, indeed.

Sill don't know if i like the transform thingy...

it looks decent, but there are many things you can do to make it better:

Lands: you are to vulnerable to nonbasic hate.

You don't need diamond valley, city of brass, exotic orchard, gemstone mine

reflecting pool is better, consider karakas, rishadan port, dust bowl (since you run crucible)

1 cmc
i don't think you play that many creatures for berserk, IMO. Add brainstorm instead.

2 cmc
two words: STONEFORGE MYSTIC.
would definitely cut sakura since you only play with 3 basics.
no goyf?

3 cmc

+ intuition
+kithcne finks
-wall of denial

4 cmc
+ gifts ungiven (seriously, best card for 4 CMC)
- solemn simulacrum (not enough basics)


hope it helps, there are tons of 5c and 4c goodstuff decks out there, make a search here in our forum...

That top 8 shows the problem of the format, spells on legs. Every new one printed is an autoinclude.

Well, I don't like this trend at all either, but this is the direction the WotC is taking magic. I am not sure can we artificially fight that effectively.

This!

There isn't much we can do, to fight this... You either go completely beserk on the ban/unban (which also doesn't make sense) or can't really pull this off, but i'm in favour of unbanning more controlissh/combo stuff

Quite good. It can be played after a demonic tutor or gifts or intuition. He plays extremely well with karakas, making it hard to kill. It can enter on your opponent's turn, so you don't have to tap out (specially true for tempo decks). I don't believe this is an auto-include, but it sure is very potent. Also the 3 damage makes for nice beater, playe it eot and hold counter your opponent's removal.

I might be completely wrong about this but in case what one might call nutty manabases for multiple colours are a problem, is the main problem really fetching? As in, fetching does indeed thin down your deck (a bit) and but it also only fetches you one of two possible basic lands - unless we count in Ravnica and the original duals. This situation turns every fetchland into a "choose between two duals" in any deck multiple colour deck, right? I recently came along a 5c-deck that used no basic lands but every dual and fetchland possible. I heard it had cost 3000€ to build.
So, what I am getting at here is: is the problem actually the existence of fetchlands - or the existence of strictly superior dual-lands? And by strictly superior I do mean "better in every way conceivable":
1. They enter the field untapped.
2. There is no cost to using them.
3. There is no condition to using them.
4. They have the "basic land types" -subtypes - which makes them fetchable.
Now, I actually have nothing against Ravnica duals: they have a choice attached: pain or tapped. So basically you are to choose between two handicaps listed above. But I do have a problem with the old duals. It might be on a personal level (although, having played for only a relatively short time, I have only come across them online), and so, I accept the possibility of being misconceived.
Now then, for all I know, there are many possible explanations as to why those cards should not be banned. I am merely pointing out how they are probably a bigger problem than fetchlands - maybe except in the case of time usage - and should be considered for banning prior to them. But let's see if I have grasped anything about the reasons for which those cards probably should not be banned:
1. They're acceptable in all other eternal formats.
Well, I find this an inadequate reason for anything. Yes, there might be practical reasons concerning the player base: people might want to be able to play them, and they would choose any format over the one in which they could bot do that. But the fact remains: even if something has always been, it does not mean that things could not be otherwise and still better.
2. You can only play one of each of them.
This is taking my speculation even further. But I have seen arguments like these in Highlander discussion. It's simply funny how such arguments can be applied to any card, considering the rules, so if they were to be accepted in any given case, then there would actually be no justification for a ban list. Since you could only play one of each of the broken cards (excuding tutors -which is exactly what fetchlands do for these duals). Not to mention that there are quite a few of these cards in total, if one is playing three or more colours.
3. They are healthy for a multi-colour meta-encironment.
Well, of course the best multicolor lands there are will always remain the best possible choices for people using multiple colours. But I see it as more of a problem: perfectly fine multiple colour lands are simply trampled by their presence. More balanced ones, you could say. Since they have the balancing handicaps I listed above (tapped, cost, condition, hardly tutorable).

Here's one thing on my behalf strictly against them, though:
They are expensive. They might not be like the Power 9, but they are still indeed strictly superior to their descendants. And they are old - their price will only be going up, especially with everyone in Legacy and Vintage lusting after a playset of whatever they need. For what I've understood, this is a sufficient reason for banning in some cases, although the duals have not been deemed as too expensive thus far.
I'd still like to be myself clear on this: people capable of affording duals have strictly superior manabases. It creates an imbalance, although I suppose I do need to accept as a fact that most of the best cards can be pricey. So one could argue that if you cannot or will not afford them, you are playing the wrong game. But that would seem simply a bit too elitist for the future of the game in general.

So, this is indeed strictly no call to ban the duals but I hope that I am making a point: rather the duals than the fetches.

Well, there are loads of things which i really don't agree. all just make points, here goes:

1)all duals, all fetches makes for a 5cc an easy target for aggro + nonbaisc hate.
2) over 3000€? yes, probably. Just add jace, mana drain, goyf, duals, etc... This might sound snobish, but if you don't have the money, play with something else, RDW is a lot cheaper (and probably even better than a 5cc)
3) again, jace costs more than some duals...
4( right now, with fetchs, shockslands, m10 duals, etc, etc, nothing having old duals doesn't necessary mean auto-loss
5) I see several 5c lists without the full dual sets
6) fetches shuffles your deck, creates time issues, duals don't. (not saying fetches should ban, though)
7) if you pack your deck with 10 ftechs + basics you really aren't that off vs a deck with duals.
again, some ppl even prefer having the full fetch set, ratehr than the duals (again, not saying fetches should be banned)
9) they aren't that expensive compared to other cards (ravages of war, mana drain, jace...) and they are a good investment since you can pu them into "every deck" unlike some specific cards (e.g timetwister..)
10) you can still be competitive in our format without the full dual sets

I know some points are repetitive, but i really never thought of someone playing a dual and i'm going "OMG, what now?... etc.." so, banning duals never really crossed my mind.

Mythrandir 5CC VS Vazdru Gwb elves
2:1

Game 1: I start and play nothing relevant. he starts and plays some elfs and then tutors cradle which ramps to deranged hermit. Meanwhile i tried to play EE but i'm unable to play it sac it, so on his next turn he green comands it to top and shuffles it. I'm left at 2. I went for gifts ungivne, but i was just too low on life and color screw.. had a jund charm from the beginning.

Game 2: I'm able to stall the game with some removal and shriekmaw. Etched oracle really gave me some CA since i was using volrath stronghold. In the end this CA really gave me the edge.

Game 3: He mulls down to 5 and i kill 2 of his mana elfs, but in the meanwhile while he starts to get flooded.  I'm also bit stuck on my mana base which an acidic slime doesnt help, however i have a 6/7 goyf (which cant attack because of the death touch) he plays garruk and creates some tokens. I have gifts and went for ajani vengeant and eventually kill his horde of 3/3's and started dealing damage with goyf.

A bit of frustating games. Besides game 2 either me or him (especially the 3rd game) had horrible manabases. frustation leads to mistakes being made and well...

Better games next time, buddy!

Unban!

It isn't powerful enough to see ban hammer. there are alot of other cards that have time issues and there are other cards that are auto-includes (fetches) independently of your deck.
Aggro decks can't really abuse this (at least early on..), so even though this goes or can go in all decks this is mostly a problem in mid-games. A fast player can easily pay 1 eot and see top 3 and choose fast. The biggest problem is still shuffling not paying the 1 and choosing your top.
With this said, well me just clarify i'm not pro-banning fetches. Just saying that top, although decisive in a lot of games, specially midgames isn't powerful or disruptive enough to see a ban.

You can still play needle in everydeck to stop this. You can counters, you can krosan grip it.

just my 2 cents

[Red:]

Jace, Memory Adept   3UU
Planeswalker - Jace    Mythic Rare
+1: Draw a card. Target player puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
0: Target player puts the top ten cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
-7: Any number of target players each draw twenty cards.
Loyalty: 4

Initial verdict: Meh. Probably the final one, as well.

Meh indeed! No reason to play with this. jace 1.0 and 2.0 are way better. Unless you're going for a mill deck.. and even then, meh

Visions of Beyond   U
Instant    Rare
Draw a card. If a graveyard has twenty or more cards in it, draw three cards instead.

The million-dollar question: Can this bugger be broken somehow? I kinda doubt it. But if there's a format it might be good in, it's ours.

Will definitely see some play, highlander broken? I'm guessing no, bue in a 60 card format where you can pack 4x of thse, probably....

Red:

Chandra, the Firebrand   3R
Planeswalker - Chandra    Mythic Rare
+1: Chandra, the Firebrand deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
-2: When you cast you next instant or sorcery spell this turn, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
-6: Chandra, the Firebrand deals 6 damage to each of up to six target creatures and/or players.
Loyalty: 3

Good planeswalker is good. That's all. Also, boo Mythic and a million dollar pricetag.

Quite good and the single R in her cost makes it playable in different decks.

Chandra's Phoenix   1RR
Creature - Phoenix    Rare
Flying

Haste

Whenever an opponent is dealt damage by a red instant or sorcery spell you control or by a red planeswalker you control, return Chandra's Phoenix from your graveyard to your hand.
2/2

Nice toys? RDW wants more nice toys.

Cute and flavourful. Me like it.

Skinshifter      1G
Creature - Human Shaman    Rare
{G}: Choose one - Until end of turn, Skinshifter becomes a 4/4 Rhino and gains trample; or until end of turn, Skinshifter becomes a 2/2 Bird and gains flying; or until end of turn, Skinshifter becomes a 0/8 Plant. Activate this ability only once each turn.
1/1

Whatever you need, this guy does it. All around nice critter.

It's weird this came out so late in MTG history. It's very well designed!

Sundial of the Infinite   2
Artifact    Rare
1, {T}: End the turn. Activate this ability only during your turn.

My prize for the most interesting Magic card printed in the last couple of years. Time will tell if anything comes out of it.
Stax?

Yeap! There will be people definitely going to try and do something with this, but i find it hard.

Is the full spoiler out, yet? I remember seeing other interesting cards in the partial spoiler. I'l post them here later...

bottom line: there is a power creep seen in creatures lately, which make creature tutors stronger and stronger and variance and variety suffer abit. you deal with stoneforge or thrun too often considering its a freakin 100 card format. i am not saying ban all instant speed creature tutors, but in the long run, with more ridiculous creatures being printed they are going to be too powerful. same thing with gifts ungiven, i always felt like that card is unfair.

Also, spoils mulligan affect the number of times you see stoneforge t2, so...

Gitfs, after LFTL being banned gets you completely different things in different decks and in different situations. Unless you're playing combo, your gifts will probably vary from game to game.

Cards that beat Thrun and are widely played in control decks include but are not limited to: Wrath, Damnation, Stoneforge Mystic (and its targets), Baneslayer, Exalted, titans, Moat, Humility, Natural Order, Bribery, Meloku, Masticore, Wurmcoil Engine... and all tutors that find them.

agreed.. you can tutor him up on turn 1, he only appears at turn 4, so, you can deal with it.

Banning tutors isn't the option IMO. I wonder how the council feels about banning a card on "repetitive game play", a bit like LFTL.