We ran. You’ve driven here before I said
emphatically and kissed the door, alive
and fluttering like days. The snowstorms drive
the clouds to meet their shadows here you said
but wished the opposite and I you led
away in hand and hand. We couldn’t thrive
on weeds and winter, mourning, let arrive
the sky and me and all awoke but dead—
—as if the bed was paper breathing storms
I sleep and strive to seek and find and find
its ink my blood and sweat and spit to stay
the haunting edge of morning. Sunlight forms
and zealously the dawn began to grind
your smile me and everyone away
For three years I had sought
poems. Thinking they would appear
from nothing, I turned, a key,
as if locking away was itself
an act of poetry, a mortifying
submission to patience. But
nothing is still. Poems defy
entropy: I spit into the lock
and the knob turns.
As ~ enters the battlefield, choose a basic land type. ~ is that land type.
t: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Bear with me -- I promise, there's a point to this.
Now, what kind of deck would you run?
Combo? Would there be any combo decks out there that would really benefit from access to more colors than it already runs (discounting Scapeshift, of course, this land being a Mountain and all)?
Aggro? Can anything get more aggressive than the Zoo lists that are already there?
Control? Now that you've got access to everything, how would you judge the best, and would you even need all 5 colors?
I think the types of decks here that would really shine would be tempo and midrange, since the mana curves and styles of those archetypes are where multicolor synergies really begin to get good.
But back to the question: what would you build? And then, the real question: would it be possible to run that deck without this new land?
I know that this thought-experiment discounts the decks that work by exploiting shaky manabases, but since Sinkhole and Wasteland don't exist in this format, I don't think that it's a huge concern to the hypothetical deck given the meta at hand.
I had a feeling I was correct; thanks for the clarification. When I tried doing this on Cockatrice, I got called a "nettard" and was met with a ragequit.
At this point, Squadron Hawk is on the stack, and Spell Snare is in my hand.
My understanding is that before every resolution, priority passes in APNAP order. So before Squadron Hawk resolves, I get to Spell Snare it if I've the mana open.
Here's a poem that I wrote based on a friend's painting of the same title:
The Miser's Indulgence
Always saying he is alone. He is not
really alone as much as terrified
of the idea: here is something
new and he had never been a modernist, beautiful
as he was, could not bear to see himself
charred, the memory wandering like
driftwood through iterations of cheap
hotel rooms. He thought he would very
much like to live forever, half
alive as if he had never seen himself
in a mirror. And when Death, after
years of deliberation chose
to place one before him, he choked
in abject terror eyes standing
disastrously open, as if some horrible
truth escaped into the walls
from the ashes of his voice
Once you get to a higher level, cheesy things like mass Void Ray and Banshee rushing become far less common. But every game loss to cheese is a big reminder: scout, scout, scout.
I recently came into possession of a translation of the book. Hooo boy, it's a tough read - mostly because Hitler's terrible writing has been preserved.
Oh, God, I couldn't bear to read more than ten to twenty pages at a time of that ramble.
I'd discount red from Hitler's color pool, too. If anything, his mana cost would be something like WWB. Hitler's philosophies may have been logically irrational, but they weren't whimsical.
The game had a "know rules" in the title. I guess that there's a hidden rule where Lotus Cobra taps for mana...
It is now turn 10 (Monteiro)
It is now the Beginning Phase, Untap Step
Monteiro untaps his/her permanents
It is now the Beginning Phase, Upkeep Step
It is now the Beginning Phase, Draw Step
Monteiro draws a card
It is now the Precombat Main Phase
Monteiro taps Forest
Monteiro taps Plains
Monteiro taps Island
Monteiro taps Sunpetal Grove
Monteiro taps Lotus Cobra
Monteiro taps Noble Hierarch
Monteiro plays Sovereigns of Lost Alara from Hand
It is now the Combat Phase, Declare Attackers Step
Monteiro taps Rhox War Monk
Monteiro taps Rhox War Monk
Rhox War Monk is now 4/5
Rhox War Monk is now 5/6 <Monteiro> no search
<Minion of Boredom> Did you just tap
<Minion of Boredom> Lotus
<Minion of Boredom> for mana?
<System> Player Lost
I don't think that Time Reversal will ever see competitive play in Constructed. There are no decks in Standard that can abuse what is essentially a Draw7 with relatively little available mana after casting it (see most Vintage Tendrils lists).
Ignoring the "it gives you gas" argument -- aside from being a matter of chance, your opponent gets an equal amount of gas, and any Tier 1 deck will almost by definition have an answer to the other threats of Tier 1 decks of the format -- let's look at what happens immediately after you cast Time Reversal.
You're down 5 mana. You have the first shot at playing any relevant threats, but you'll be hard-pressed to do that without that 5 mana spent on Time Reversal. You're essentially giving your opponent tempo in the form of the first chance to actually play the gas that he or she drew.
Now, this is mitigated in situations when you play:
a) a deck where your opponent's gas is largely useless after a point in the game (UW Control v Aggro, for example)
b) a tempo deck where you've got sufficient mana to cast Time Reversal plus whatever else you draw (some kind of ramp?)
c) a deck where you drop your hand much more quickly than your opponent (matchup dependent)
"a" is irrelevant in Standard's UW Control; by the time you're actually going to want to cast it (when you have countermagic open plus its casting cost), it'll have been a dead card for at least two turns. For that price, I'd rather have a one-sided Mind Spring or something of that sort. Also, UW Control doesn't exactly drop its hand quickly, so you probably will end up giving your opponent the card advantage.
"b" is irrelevant in Standard because there really aren't many good Tempo decks in this meta. Even Eldrazi Ramp will be hard-pressed to cast the Titans in the dearth of 5 mana.
"c" is irrelevant because I highly doubt that any hyperaggressive decks will be able to produce 3UU. Naya Zoo with Time Reversal, anyone?
I'm not saying that this is a bad card -- of course it would be good in UW Control alongside others -- but it's that there are better and more consistent. Time Reversal is useless for UW Control until at least turn 6 or 7, when you can leave mana open for counters.
The only "hot" decks that I can see using Time Reversal effectively would be Turboland.dec and Polymorph.dec. And hey, we get a functional reprint of one of the Power 9. That in and of itself is pretty cool, to be honest.
It is not as bad as I thought, but blue bounce on it as it comes into play is still very bad. Remember as it comes into play you can respond by letting the discard cards trigger go on the stack then bounce it and you will end up discarding your hand and getting the Gorger back into an empty hand.
Actually, Gorger is worded so this can't happen:
...If you do, discard your hand.
If the ETB trigger is responded to with anything that removes Thought Gorger from the battlefield, no counters get placed anywhere, and you won't have to discard your hand.
DREAM SONNET I
We ran. You’ve driven here before I said
emphatically and kissed the door, alive
and fluttering like days. The snowstorms drive
the clouds to meet their shadows here you said
but wished the opposite and I you led
away in hand and hand. We couldn’t thrive
on weeds and winter, mourning, let arrive
the sky and me and all awoke but dead—
—as if the bed was paper breathing storms
I sleep and strive to seek and find and find
its ink my blood and sweat and spit to stay
the haunting edge of morning. Sunlight forms
and zealously the dawn began to grind
your smile me and everyone away
poems. Thinking they would appear
from nothing, I turned, a key,
as if locking away was itself
an act of poetry, a mortifying
submission to patience. But
nothing is still. Poems defy
entropy: I spit into the lock
and the knob turns.
That's kinda the point.
IF such a ridiculously OP land existed, what would you build around it?
That last clause was to prevent the Domain keyword from being so powerful from the get-go, but yeah, Domain Zoo would still be pretty strong.
Basic Land
As ~ enters the battlefield, choose a basic land type. ~ is that land type.
t: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Bear with me -- I promise, there's a point to this.
Now, what kind of deck would you run?
Combo? Would there be any combo decks out there that would really benefit from access to more colors than it already runs (discounting Scapeshift, of course, this land being a Mountain and all)?
Aggro? Can anything get more aggressive than the Zoo lists that are already there?
Control? Now that you've got access to everything, how would you judge the best, and would you even need all 5 colors?
I think the types of decks here that would really shine would be tempo and midrange, since the mana curves and styles of those archetypes are where multicolor synergies really begin to get good.
But back to the question: what would you build? And then, the real question: would it be possible to run that deck without this new land?
I know that this thought-experiment discounts the decks that work by exploiting shaky manabases, but since Sinkhole and Wasteland don't exist in this format, I don't think that it's a huge concern to the hypothetical deck given the meta at hand.
Curious to hear your thoughts.
It's nice to be right.
Opponent plays Squadron Hawk.
I Spell Snare it.
He Remands my Snare, and Remand resolves.
At this point, Squadron Hawk is on the stack, and Spell Snare is in my hand.
My understanding is that before every resolution, priority passes in APNAP order. So before Squadron Hawk resolves, I get to Spell Snare it if I've the mana open.
Am I correct in my assessment? If not, why?
The Miser's Indulgence
Always saying he is alone. He is not
really alone as much as terrified
of the idea: here is something
new and he had never been a modernist, beautiful
as he was, could not bear to see himself
charred, the memory wandering like
driftwood through iterations of cheap
hotel rooms. He thought he would very
much like to live forever, half
alive as if he had never seen himself
in a mirror. And when Death, after
years of deliberation chose
to place one before him, he choked
in abject terror eyes standing
disastrously open, as if some horrible
truth escaped into the walls
from the ashes of his voice
If anyone wants to play/practice, add me:
[email]toad3x9@gmail.com[/email]
or
poeticEnnui///623
Oh, God, I couldn't bear to read more than ten to twenty pages at a time of that ramble.
I'd discount red from Hitler's color pool, too. If anything, his mana cost would be something like WWB. Hitler's philosophies may have been logically irrational, but they weren't whimsical.
After blockers are declared, both players get priority to play instant-speed spells and abilities.
I vote for Sam's poem.
Not because he got the inspiration from me, or anything.
It is now turn 10 (Monteiro)
It is now the Beginning Phase, Untap Step
Monteiro untaps his/her permanents
It is now the Beginning Phase, Upkeep Step
It is now the Beginning Phase, Draw Step
Monteiro draws a card
It is now the Precombat Main Phase
Monteiro taps Forest
Monteiro taps Plains
Monteiro taps Island
Monteiro taps Sunpetal Grove
Monteiro taps Lotus Cobra
Monteiro taps Noble Hierarch
Monteiro plays Sovereigns of Lost Alara from Hand
It is now the Combat Phase, Declare Attackers Step
Monteiro taps Rhox War Monk
Monteiro taps Rhox War Monk
Rhox War Monk is now 4/5
Rhox War Monk is now 5/6
<Monteiro> no search
<Minion of Boredom> Did you just tap
<Minion of Boredom> Lotus
<Minion of Boredom> for mana?
<System> Player Lost
Ignoring the "it gives you gas" argument -- aside from being a matter of chance, your opponent gets an equal amount of gas, and any Tier 1 deck will almost by definition have an answer to the other threats of Tier 1 decks of the format -- let's look at what happens immediately after you cast Time Reversal.
You're down 5 mana. You have the first shot at playing any relevant threats, but you'll be hard-pressed to do that without that 5 mana spent on Time Reversal. You're essentially giving your opponent tempo in the form of the first chance to actually play the gas that he or she drew.
Now, this is mitigated in situations when you play:
a) a deck where your opponent's gas is largely useless after a point in the game (UW Control v Aggro, for example)
b) a tempo deck where you've got sufficient mana to cast Time Reversal plus whatever else you draw (some kind of ramp?)
c) a deck where you drop your hand much more quickly than your opponent (matchup dependent)
"a" is irrelevant in Standard's UW Control; by the time you're actually going to want to cast it (when you have countermagic open plus its casting cost), it'll have been a dead card for at least two turns. For that price, I'd rather have a one-sided Mind Spring or something of that sort. Also, UW Control doesn't exactly drop its hand quickly, so you probably will end up giving your opponent the card advantage.
"b" is irrelevant in Standard because there really aren't many good Tempo decks in this meta. Even Eldrazi Ramp will be hard-pressed to cast the Titans in the dearth of 5 mana.
"c" is irrelevant because I highly doubt that any hyperaggressive decks will be able to produce 3UU. Naya Zoo with Time Reversal, anyone?
I'm not saying that this is a bad card -- of course it would be good in UW Control alongside others -- but it's that there are better and more consistent. Time Reversal is useless for UW Control until at least turn 6 or 7, when you can leave mana open for counters.
The only "hot" decks that I can see using Time Reversal effectively would be Turboland.dec and Polymorph.dec. And hey, we get a functional reprint of one of the Power 9. That in and of itself is pretty cool, to be honest.
Just my $0.02.
Actually, Gorger is worded so this can't happen:
If the ETB trigger is responded to with anything that removes Thought Gorger from the battlefield, no counters get placed anywhere, and you won't have to discard your hand.