Inclusive versus Exclusive games

This line of thinking came about after my comparison of Path of Exile to Magic the Gathering. I realized why I found the games so similar, and why they tend to have more depth than games like Hearthstone or Diablo 3. Its because they take extraordinary pains not to exclude options from the player. So, first point of order is what is the definition of Exclusive and Inclusive?

Exclusive - A game that removes options from the player based on some initial choice.

Inclusive - A game that doesn't remove options from the player but supports options with escalating costs.

That's a bit simplistic, so some examples are in order. I've already stated that I believe Magic and POE to be inclusive games. Lets look at Magic first. Don't you have to pick your colors before playing a game of magic? No actually. You are perfectly free in deck building to put anything you want in your deck. Its up to you to figure out how to cast the cards you choose to play. The best example of this is the Legacy deck Sneak and Show. The title of the deck refers to two cards, Sneak Attack and Show and Tell. Not only do these decks cheat into play things that cost more mana than you have access to, they also cheat into play cards that are outside your mana colors.A popular strategy against Sneak and Show for a long time was to board in Angel of Despair. This gave you an out if they played Show and Tell. This type of scenario is  unusual, but is totally possible because the limits of what you can play in Magic are defined by what you can pay for. If you don't ever play against Sneak and Show you lost your sideboard slots. If you board it in and they don't play Show and Tell then you have dead cards. There is a cost to using this option.

The contrast here is Hearthstone. In Hearthstone you can't play anything outside your Class. If you were in the situation where the equivalent of Angel of Despair, something that normally you couldn't cast but would be perfect in a specific situation then you would be shit out of luck.This is because in Hearthstone what you can play is defined by the designer of the game instead of the deckbuilding cost of including cards that are hard to play. In short, in Magic you can play anything but covering it all could stretch you out till your deck is suboptimal. Blizzard made Hearthstone to exclude cards outside your "Color" both to simplfy the resource system and so people didn't trap themselves while building their decks.

That is the essential tension between Inclusive and Exclusive games. Inclusive games give you significantly more options at the cost of being much harder to learn and become proficient in. Exclusive games tend to try to follow the mantra of "Easy to learn, difficult to Master." They are designed specifically to present a more streamlined experience with less clutter. The trade off being that with less available to the players the game loses some amount of the subtly that comes with truly masterful games.

The same holds true for POE and D3. POE requires you to plan what you want to do with your character before you start, but what you want to do with any given character is essentially infinite. Everything is held together by the cost associated with a build. The more complicated and difficult the build, the higher the cost will be in gearing, skills, mana, life, etc. And no one class is held to a specific set of skills. It may not be optimal or easy to build a Marauder as an Incinerate character, but it is within the set of possibilities the game allows. Holding that up against D3 and its not even close. D3 has skills tied to classes, gear has nowhere near the impact that it does for POE in terms of broadening a character's possible builds, and their crafting system doesn't even hold a candle to POE's ability to manipulate gear. Also, making D3 all self-found holds players back from trying experimental gear due to the rarity of the involved items.

It sounds like I'm arguing in favor of Inclusive games, but they have detractors as well. Inclusive games are much harsher on new players. The sheer amount of options and information you have to learn make for a significant barrier to entry. I played magic for two to three years before I could really follow along with coverage. It took another three years before I really got what games hinged on. That's a monstrous amount of time to be involved with something. I had fun the whole way, but not everyone has the time/interest/focus to stay with one game for a long period of time, especially when Exclusive games exist that streamline the action for you.

Exclusive games have the benefit of being able to pick up and play them. They are cool tightly packed experiences. Not everyone who plays games has hours and hours to pour into them. And by no means does being exclusive prelude having a rabid fanbase as Hearthstone has proven.

As before, neither choice is more correct in the grand scheme of things, but for a specific game its important to have your audience in mind. How are you making the game for? Do you want the experience to reward high time investment and complexity but shut out potential new players, or be engaging and have a low barrier to entry but not have the same level of mastery.

More on Complexity versus Clarity

A couple weeks ago, I had a post that asked the question is it worth spending the time on clarity at the cost of complexity and depth? Path of Exile was the example I used for a game that values complexity so much that it allows new players to reach a fail state for their characters. Grinding Gear Games, Path's publisher, assumes you have a base of knowledge, but what games can you learn from but that lose your interest?

I think that the opposite problem exists for some games. That they focus so much on clarity and getting new players into the game that they have solved-states. A solved-state is when you have nothing left to explore. If a game is shallow enough, then figuring out the optimal strategy is easy. Once people have figured out the best thing to be doing a game loses a lot of the mystery. You know the thing you should be doing. There are people that intentionally do something sub-optimal just to prove that they can, but that is rather abnormal. A solved state is as much a problem as a failed state. It makes your turn over very high. That works for a game that has some up-front cost, e.g. the traditional AAA releases, but more and more games aim to have a living model where content is developed continuously. It is vital to games to be able to retain their playerbase and solved states lead to less invested players, less interest, and a game's eventual death.
 
 To keep the comparisons consistent, lets take Magic and Diablo 3. Both games spend a pretty inordinate amount of time walking new players through the early game. Diablo 3 has way more difficulty modes than it realistically needs, and the developers of Magic really want new players to play sealed before they do anything else. They both have solid mid-games with Diablo 3's gearing process and Magic's emphasis on Standard and then Modern for professional events. However Diablo 3's end game is notoriously weak. This is not to say its non-existent, its just not satisfying. Between Diablo 3 and Reaper of Souls there was virtually no end game, and while Reaper was a huge upgrade over vanilla D3, it still doesn't even remotely compare to Path of Exile or the depth of other titles. Magic manages to have an incredible complexity to it even after you graduate from the heavily played formats. Casual formats abound, and Legacy and Vintage are virtually unsolvable formats.

D3 has the solve-state problem. They don't have a great retention rate, and that's because once you get to the end game you get bored, and that's the issue with a lack of complexity. If a game isn't deep enough then it loses its top end to other game.They are trying to develop a continual progression system but honestly once you get to the higher levels of gameplay the game breaks down. There aren't enough things to explore and the Greater Rift system is virtually the only thing to do except trying to get a Hellfire Amulet that's worth a damn. The lack of trading also stunts the community since commerce is what invariably makes people come together.Path of Exile has been growing by leaps and bounds because its feeding on the players that have grown dissatisfied by the end game of D3.

Now does this make D3 a bad game? Fuck no. Its sold millions of copies. Its got excellent gameplay, and a very viceral appeal. Its just cool. Its model of having a tight experience that you can play and get to the "end game" only takes a moderate amount of play time that feels good the whole way. You never feel lost as you are playing through that game and you can't fail in the long term. A game doesn't have to last forever, being the one thing that eats up all of your time. I personally like games that are on the deep end, but D3 is a great Action RPG for people that just want to play a few hours here or there.

The rest of the spoilers and some closing thoughts on the set.

First of all, I'm not going to talk about every card. I'd be here all night. If I don't mention something feel free to ask, but if I can't think of anything to say I'm just going to skip the card.

White:

Mastery of the Unseen-
This is a niffty little card. It is going to be expensive to use, but provides some nice advantage if you go through the hoops it sets up. Since it wants you to have lots of mana and lots of creatures it pairs really well with Gae's Cradle. Pairing with green also gives us access to Sylvan Library, which is powerful in conjunction with manifest already. Simply putting this with Rhys or an enchantress shell or something of that nature will pay off but I'm not too sure it would be worthwhile given you have to pay four to put it in play and then the creatures cost. You have to really want the life gain. The one place I can think of that this would be perfect for is Trostani. G/W, plays with lots of creatures, loves to gain life, plays with whole bunches of library manipulation.

Rally the Ancestors-
This is similar to Wake the Dead. There are several key differences though. The first is what your mana is buying you. With WtD you can pay 3 mana to pull up a 10 mana creature. On RtA you end up paying 2 more mana than the creature costs. So you would pay 12 mana to get that creature. However, you get everything that costs 10 or less mana, and you can cast RtA anytime you want, the thing stopping you from attacking with the creatures being an upkeep exile trigger. So you can keep the dudes around through a whole cycle of turns in EDH as blockers. That the card exiles itself and the creatures makes repeating the effect virtually impossible. Dodging the upkeep trigger through sacrifice and bounce lets you hold onto your dudes, and the timing on the trigger lets you have mana again before resolving the exile trigger. Also, if you manage to get some kind of global haste then you can use this to resurrect your graveyard and swing. The trade off being that you either need tons of mana or rather small creatures Altogether a good card that will see play in a variety of value based strategies.

Sage's Reverie-
This is just another good toy for aura voltron strategies. That said, its a very good card in those decks. It'll draw you 2-3 cards and be another +2-3 p/t.

Blue:

Frost Walker-
Why isn't this an illusion? Why does it look like an Eldrazi? Why does the flavor text talk about allies when it looks like the Frost Walker is about to straight up murder that dude?

Neutralizing Blast-
Most decks are going to have multicolor cards that you can hit with this. Its cheap and splash-able. I would rate this as playable if you have targets in mind that you want to hit with it. There are certainly enough 1U conditional counter spells that this is fighting for prominence so it won't see too much play, but don't overlook it.

Reality Shift-
This card just became my go-to removal in heavy blue decks. The odds that the manifest hits are really low, and then they still have to pay for the creature anyway. Reality Shift being an instant also makes it really flexible. It costs two mana so its easy to leave up for it, and there are no targeting restrictions. This is an answer to Eldrazi or other hard to deal with creatures. Marque blue removal, will get played everywhere.

Refocus-
I don't know what breaks this seemingly innocuous card, but something does, and its tremendous value in a Merieke Ri Berite, Dralnu, or other Tap ability focused deck.

Renowned Weaponsmith-
While I'm doubtful that his second ability is going to be used, tapping for multiple arifact mana could get this guy played in Sharuum, Esper Triplets, Teferi Planeswalker, or another artifact mana reliant deck. He's essentially a worse version of Chief Engineer. Still, decks like a certain density of effect and with the singleton nature of EDH additional printings of unique effects help with consistency.

Rite of Undoing-
This has potential to be good in a tempo oriented deck with lots of cantrips and spare permanents. I'm think of Rafiq-esque decks. It obviously pairs well with aggression and enter the battlefield effects.

Will of the Naga-
Another Delve card, this can wind up being very cheap and freeze effects are strong in EDH given how many turns happen between any one player's turn.

Black:

Dark Deal-
I have no idea what I'd do with this since it is about the opposite of all the wheel effects. Maybe it sees play in Nekusar? It is definitely the only thing that does what it does though.

Fearsome Awakening-
If you are in the market for a 5 mana zombify and have a bunch of dragons than this is a cool one.

Ghastly Conscription-
This is a big expensive effect that only promises you having to pay more mana to flip the creatures back over. Rise of the Dark Realms is only two mana more, steals all the creatures face up, and steals all the creatures. Even without a comparison point, I don't like this too much since you have to have the right color of mana to flip the creatures, meaning that the best target is pretty much always yourself. Targeting other players to strip out their graveyard is also likely not going to be useful since the creatures can all just die again. This seems cool but I don't like it all that much.

Grave Strength-
This has the potential to add a lot of power for very little investment. There's plenty of black decks that are based around the yard though, so this can even help enable some strategies.

Merciless Executioner-
Fleshbag Marauder reprint with a different name. Fleshbag has been a staple in EDH for years since it essentially reads each other player sacrifices a creature. I expect having access to two Fleshbags is going to come up a fair amount. Also, ORC TRIBAL.

Orc Sureshot-
This has some potential. Its like Noxius Ghoul, but instead of everything, its target creature. The trade off is that he triggers on everything, making him quite lethal in token strategies. At 4 mana he's a stretch, but he definitely can't stay on the board if your opponents have any desire to play with smallish creatures.

Qarsi High Priest-
I like this guy. He is repeatable Manifest and an instant speed sac outlet at a very small investment in mana.

Sibsig Muckdraggers-
This seems like a good deal, but to play it for 1 mana you essentially have to have 9 cards in your graveyard. It might be there's somewhere you want this but I have a dredge-based Mimeoplasm deck and even I think the price in cards is too steep.

Red:

Dragonrage-
This is a trap. It requires you to be attacking with four creatures to even generate mana. Decks that want to attack with that many dudes, or more, will get better use out of team wide effects. The firebreathing is interesting but not great. I don't see a home for this, unless you really want to Starstorm mid-combat.

Mob Rule-
This does a respectable Insurrection impression. Be prepared to get wrecked by this a few times just after the release and before it really gets on your radar.


Green:

Fruit of the First Tree-
Made for sacrifice/voltron decks as either value or insurance. Specifically, I like putting this in Uril as a way to draw tons of cards if you can't push through the enemy defenses.

Return to the Earth-
This is a really solid card that deals with tons of problems, as long as the enchantments and artifacts have flying.

Sudden Reclamation-
I love this card. I almost want to call it the green Fact or Fiction. Getting a creature, a land, and setting up you graveyard for more goodies is perfect. The four mana tag isn't too bad in the color of rampant growth. That it isn't limited to what you mill with it means you can essentially use it as a value raise dead at instant speed. Graveyard removal in response will stop you from getting back what you initially wanted, but provided you mill a land a creature you can still get full value.
I like this in a lot of places, like Borborigmos, Titania, Lots of Sultai decks, Jarad. Anywhere that you can reasonably expect the top four cards of your deck to have a land and a creature in it.

Temur Sabertooth-
Self-bouncing things is very strong. That you can do it as a non-tap ability for two mana makes it all the stronger. That by doing so makes this creature indestructible crosses the threshold into great territory. The 4 mana price tag to land him doesn't inspire confidence but I guarantee this guy becomes a real nuisance once he's on the battlefield. Anything with good etb effects will like him, but I think he takes on a whole new level of buillshit in Animar. He can easily go infinite in that deck with creatures that generate mana on entering the battlefield, and even without that, the value you'll generate and the number of counters you put on Animar will seal the game pretty fast.


Multicolor:

Tasigur the Golden Fang-
This guy is pretty awesome. He provides card advantage at a reasonable cost considering that its repeatable. As a general he gets to always cost one if you have the two extra cards to delve away each time he dies. He's limited in the decks he can go in, but most Sultai lists are going to appreciate a cheap body and filling the graveyard. He is obviously mana hungry, so putting him in Sidisi with Cradle seems like a solid way to grow cards in hand and tokens on the table which translates into more tokens and more cards. I like this guy quite a bit.

Alesha, Who Smiles at Death-
This is one of the cards that I really wish the hybrid rules didn't pertain to. She would be an awesome R/W general, and I suppose you can play her that way, but she would also be great in R/W or R/B aggressive decks. I think the best card to nab with her right now is Karmic Guide since you can keep looping the Guide for crazy value. R/W really needs more low to the ground aggressive value cards to step up to the other colors. We are getting there as WotC keeps shuffling the effects and power of cards. The problem with that is that Red has been great in Standard and Extended/Modern basically forever, so they are trying really hard to find things that they can do for older formats. I would say that they've been pretty successful, but its still an uphill battle for EDH.
Her trigger is pretty demanding on your mana in an aggressive deck, and you'll need a whispersilk cloak on her eventually since you need to be attacking, but I do really like the direction of the card and the strategy it wants you to play.

Warden of the First Tree-
This guy is obviously supposed to be aping Figure of Destiny. I think he's an order of magnitude worse for EDH as it is an Abzan only card. If you could put him in G/W or G/B there might be some call for him but I can't imagine wanting to pour that much mana into a card that doesn't immediately win the game. To be fair, if you get to activate his third ability in actual magic you probably do just win the game.

Atarka, World Render-
The art is amazing. She feels like a Kaiju. If you want to basically do what Karrthus does, but with easier mana. Also, things like Berzerk or Wolf Run deal double damage, but she naturally has trample so something like Might of Oaks is often fatal on its own. The double strike for all your dragons is also super scary and letting your defenses down when she's ready to go full on beast mode will likely get you killed in a hurry. She also works well slotting into two of the most popular Jund decks, Karrthus and Prossh. I expect to be seeing this Kaiju pretty frequently.

Ojutai, Soul of Winter-
If he wasn't sooooo expensive I would love this guy. Sleeping things is, as noted above, really strong in EDH. Getting to sleep multiple things every attack step is crazy strong. A seven mana tag in non-red is going to make it much harder to build around him or put him into other things. The pay off is extreme though since vigilance makes him much more difficult to attack into.

Land:

Crucible of the Spirit Dragon-
This is a neat land but it is super narrow. I only see it being useful in Scion of the Ur-dragon as fixing, though the same could be said of any Dragon themed deck.

The Set:
Overall the set has a lot of neat toys, though its really going to boil down to how good Manifest ends up being when played with. The problem is that most of the cool cards are really limited to Wedge colors when they were not designed to be wedge cards. I made a case in the last post that the hybrid mana rules need to be adjusted in the light of the new set and the cards revealed since that post only reinforce that argument. I would be twice as excited for this set's EDH potential if Alesha could be played in Brion, or Tasigur in Jarad, or Mardu Hordechief in Oloro, or Soulfire Grand Master in Gisela. The rules really need to be updated for me to really fall in love with this set, and if they are then this is honestly one of the best sets for EDH.

Aside from the color issues, the cards themselves are very powerful. There are tons of applications to the printed cards including some of the best-in-slot cards for things like blue removal, white mass resurrection, and red value creatures. Tons of this cards will be staples if not especially deck defining. There are several cool legends that have build around properties. If you like EDH then you are going to want to pay attention to this set, I just wish you could slot more of the awesome cards into more places.

Another batch of spoiler reviews

White:

Citadel Siege-
This is expensive, but the utility might make it useful for someone who simultaneously wants to grow creatures vertically and have way to manage opposing large blockers. This is probably the Siege that I like the least for EDH. Four mana buys you so much in this format that I don't think this ever really justifies itself.

 Lightform-
This is an interesting card. I'm not sure how much I love WW in the cost, but paired with library manipulation this could give someone a nasty surprise when flipped. I could see it in Uril or Brenna, but they would have to be designed in such a way as to have back up creatures to voltron up. The normal use of this is as a 3 mana 2/2 flying lifelink, which just isn't good enough. It can't even fall back on tribal synergies.

Monastery Mentor-
Chapin did a whole Select article on this guy for SCG. I don't have much to add, except that this guy will be a lightning rod the instant you cast him. One thing I'd like to play him with is tons of artifact mana and hurkyl's recall, or something that has inherent global haste. He goes into Jor Kadeen, Narset, or mono-white anthem generals. He's going to be expensive, so keep that in mind if you are playing on a budget.

Wandering Champion -
She'll kick you apart, she'll kick you apart.
This has very few possible homes, but I think I would play it in those places more often than not. W/R loves to get some velocity going, and with multiple opponents getting to connect is going to be pretty frequent. Pair this with Land Tax and you have a pretty steady stream of fuel for pitching. She also functions really well with equipment since getting to keep digging is going to work out for you. W/R generals are going to want her more than W/U or W/R/U generals are, but digging into counter magic is going to be helpful.

Blue:

Marang River Prowler-
The prowler costs a lot, and you have to pay that cost every time you want to re-cast him. He pairs pretty well with skullclamp, but so do lots of cards. I don't see him being good enough in U/B since you can have access to Bloodghast or Recurring Skeleton, but in U/G he might find a more solid home. There's also the density of effect for a deck like Grimgrin which just wants as much of this as it can get. Prowler is marginal but might be played because he just does a fairly unique thing.

Monastery Siege-
My favorite siege, this gets a huge nod because of its mana cost. This is cheap, flexible and powerful. The fact that it draws you a card means it interacts with dredge and draw triggers. It lets you put things into your graveyard, and it provides a significant amount of velocity. Its other mode also protects itself as well as all your other permanents from spot removal. This has applications in any blue deck that wants to draw a lot of cards or protect itself from spot removal, which is basically all of them.

Supplant Form-
This card will be an EDH staple. Its the same principle as Gather Specimens, but the timing isn't nearly as restricted. I see many instances of someone cheating out an Avenger or Eldrazi and getting blown out by this card. There are tons of fatties in any given game of EDH and this can even lend itself to loops pretty easily with enough mana. This is a battlecruiser card and will lead to tons of fun moments when someone thinks their winning and gets the game flipped upside down on them.

Black:

Battle Brawler-
Orc Tribal Ho!

Mardu Strike Leader-
This dude is fairly vanilla for EDH. Dash is cool but there are better bodies, better Dashers, and better token makers. Maybe if you are doing some hardcore comes into play non-sense in R/B then this guy could be a factor,  like a Flamerush Rider in number of bodies provided. Unlike the Rider, this guy's tokens hang around, letting you feed them to skullclamp or another sac outlet for value later on. Again, all the on attack triggers benefit from the multiplayer nature of edh. He might find a home in some Jund-y deck like Prossh.

Red:

Flamewake Phoenix-
More red value! yay! This creature is patently absurd. We have seen in the past that 2/2 flying haste for 3 mana is pretty good on its own. Getting it back into play tapped and attacking for R whenever you can attack is going to be really annoying to deal with for your opponents. Factor in that your opponents don't need to kill it, that you can eat it with Gargadon or whatever payoff suits your fancy, and we have a engine going on. It basically can only ever block the first time you cast it, so there is that. And sometimes its going to suicide into three opposing players that can block it, but getting it back is soooooo cheap. I can think of plenty of R/X decks that want more consistent food.

Hungering Yeti-
5 mana 4/4s with conditional flash are not where I want to be.

Green:

Abzan Kinsguard-
4 mana 3/3s with conditional lifelink are not where I want to be.

Frontier Siege-
This one is more conditional that the others, but is potentially very powerful. Its reminiscent of Skyshroud Claim the first time you cast it, adding back half its cost in the next main phase. The next turn it generates four mana, all of it colored. This mode alone makes it an auto-include in Omnath. I don't think you'll often see the other mode picked, but it tells us how much flying the next set is going to involve if green is getting an effect that relies on flying creatures. This is a good card, its just all about if you can use the mana at the somewhat awkward intervals you get it.

Multicolor:

Daghatar the Adamant-
This guy is basically a directly worse version of Ghave in EDH. He costs more to activate, his activation costs colored mana, and it does less. If you could play him in W/G or W/B then he'd probably be fine. If he cost 1 less then you play him in Tiny Leaders and he'd be fine. As is I don't see him fitting into the format anywhere when for 1 mana more you get to play one of the best generals in the format.

Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest-
For half the mana of Narset you get a very aggressive general. I don't know if I like him more or less than Narset for Voltron. On the one hand he's a threat much earlier and is more explosive. On the other hand, Narset has the best word for a general that you are trying to load up on: Hexproof. Either way this guy will be played as a general and be good. He can probably be one of your creatures in Narset and vice versa. One thing this guy can do is be played as a Tiny Leader, which is something I'll talk about more extensively in its own post.

Torrent Elemental-
This guy is pretty stout in combination with effects like Delve or something else that exiles for value. I'm thinking of putting him in my Mimeoplasm deck since the on-attack trigger turns off blockers and getting to re-cast him afterward is good value. It also helps fight through some amount of graveyard hate. The only downside is how expensive he is.

Brutal Hordechief-
Hello Nurse!
This guy is like Hellrider, except the trigger is much stronger, but he doesn't get to attack immediately. For EDH I'm really sad you can't play him in Oloro :(. We almost have enough  attack oriented stuff in Mardu to make a solid deck. The wording of the trigger lets it penetrate protection and hexproof of the defending player, but luckily they did not word it in such a way as to be broken by draining EACH opponent. The activated ability is expensive but can be activated during other players combat to interfere with blocking decisions as well as on your turn to let you get through lots of damage.

Shaman of the Great Hunt-
Another Hellrider? What is it with Khans and great four mana aggressive cards?
Anyway, this guy is definitely great. He's still held back by the color identity rules, but his activated ability is a very scary threat, and his triggered ability is also very scary. That he can build creatures up to counting for his activated ability is super cool. I think this guy is going to be solid and interesting, which is the best kind of card. He'll see play in just about every Temur deck.

Dromoka the Eternal-
Mana efficient dragons with upside are cool. I like her, but I don't know where I'd want her. She's obviously better the more you care about the counters or the more dragons you have. I doubt I'd want to play her as a general over the crazy depth of G/W generals there are out there, but she could see play in dragon focused decks like Scion or counter focused decks like Ghave. She is pretty good just as a beatstick but without protection of any kind finishing the job with her is going to be hard.

Silumgar, Drifting Death-
I like just about everything about this card. The art, the flavor text, all of it is awesome. He is expensive and doesn't kill players very fast, but he is really good at controlling the board, and the more triggers you get the harder it is to stop him. The hexproof and toughness make it very hard to get Sil to stop swinging, basically forcing your opponent to have 8 power in the air before you even have to do anything. I can see him having a deck built around him for the guy that wants to play a more traditional U/B control list with lots of instants and a few cool dragon finishers.

Aside:
That's it for the cards we've seen. I wanted to talk about this as I was writing out the card reviews, but it seemed more appropriate for the end. They are trying to build a mono-color multicolor set.You'll notice how many of the cards I listed in multicolor that are only there because of the color identity rules for edh, but whose actual mana cost is one color. All of the legends, the mythic cycle of hybrid mana cards, and so forth. I decided not to put the uncommon cycle in multicolor because you can play them in mono-color even if they would be just vanilla. They tried to build this set in such a way that you can pick one color in limited and just play basics of that color and be fine, but if you do play some of another color that'll only help you. That's because FRF is attached to the wedge set. They want you to be able to keep your options open in limited and not get screwed over by color, but still have cards that have more complex and open constructed applications. You can be in R/x in your first booster and then transition in Mardu or Temur in KTK. In standard or limited, you can easily play Brutal Hordechief in mono-B, B/W, B/R, or Mardu, but in EDH you can only play it in Mardu. So while the way these cards are cost in every other format makes them more open, the costs make the cards more limited in EDH. This is the essential paradox of the color identity rule.

Hybrid mana was designed specifically as an either or state of mana, making the cards more open and easier to play. Color identity sees hybrid as an "and" state instead of an "or" state thus limiting the application of the cards. I really dislike the rules committees ruling on hybrid mana because it is exactly the opposite as the intention of the cards that have hybrid mana. If there had only been Ravnica then Shadowmoor, maybe it wouldn't be as much of an issue to me, but as the spoiling of Yasova Dragonclaw proves, they consider Hybrid mana to be evergreen and will use it wherever they think it fits into the design of the set. Hybrid isn't going to be some corner case in the future but an ever growing portion of the card base. I don't know why they made the decision they did, but I imagine it has to do with complexity. That handling hybrid mana differently would require a significant rules update and that people buying into the format would have to figure out more than they consider fair, that magic is a complicated enough game and that they want EDH to be as close to real magic as possible. I give the people that play magic more credit and think that tweaking hybrid to work as the designers intended is a noble, attainable, and non-catastrophic goal.

This isn't the first time that people have had to present good arguments to get them to change their mind. Memnarch, Bosh, and other generals used to be useless since color identity didn't take into account the text box of the card in question. While hybrid mana won't ruin EDH and the gains of changing the rules right now would be relatively minor, its something that is going to come up over and over as they print more hybrid cards. I'm certain I'm not the only person that thinks that the hybrid rules are restrictive and against the spirit of the cards it appears on. I'd love to play Debtor's Knell in Mimeoplasm or Brutal Hordchief in Oloro, and those are just the first two that come to mind. I'm not sure how I'd reword the rule. Maybe since its supposed to be either or you'd have to pick one color beforehand? It would need some testing to sus out what felt right, but the current iteration has been out lived.

Spoilers so far

So I'm going to review the cards as they're spoiled. I want to talk about them from a design perspective and their uses for EDH.

Colorless:
We'll start with the big one, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
Ugin is a really good card. Ugin's +2 can kill your opponent on its own. Ugin is maybe the best planeswalker at defending himself on board since he comes stapled to All Is Dust. The obvious comparison is to Karn since they are both big mana colorless planeswalkers. His + can stop on board threats unlike Karn who has to act as a disrupting scepter to build toward his ult, though Karn builds faster, he is also easier to attack. Ugin's negative ability can splash your own board, whereas Karn's is always pinpoint. Karn's ult is often game winning, but that's not the point of Karn. I can see many situations where Ugin's ult is going to be a real threat that you have to stop. Ugin is going to require a non-permanent threat to stop him on his way to winning the game for you. In non-edh environments Ugin can even ult into himself and chain things together. In EDH his ult can bring some unbelievable board states to life.

Ugin was clearly designed to be the marque card of the set. He is an incredibly internally consistent card that wins the game for his controller in multiple ways. I'm expecting him to show up in Standard, Modern, EDH. He might be strong enough to show up in legacy since he murders literally everything players play in that format. In EDH you'll play him in any big mana oriented deck. Teferi, Temporal Archmage would be a great fit for Ugin, as would other artifact mana based decks. The other route is to play him in some green acceleration based deck like Azusa. He can be slotted as either a board wipe or essentially as an enchantment that does three damage a turn. The other way to think of him is as a delayed Sphinx's Revelation.

No matter what you play him in or for, lots and lots of people will be playing Ugin. The mechanics of his card set him firmly as the opponent to Nicol Bolas, particularly the ultimate. The art is reflective of this, as is the mana cost. They are setting up Ugin to be the one to oppose Bolas in the alternate future.

White:
Honor's Reward -
Bolster as a mechanic is really good at catching you back up from behind. It makes your little dudes into big dudes. Having that effect stapled to a three mana instant might have been good enough. Having that instant gain you four life is going to be very solid as you can take a hit or two while pushing with your weenie creatures and leaving your smallest creature behind, threatening to make it much larger. That they are counters means you get to permanently enlarge your smallest guy, probably making another guy your bolster target from then on. This card is pretty well designed, but just doesn't have enough impact for EDH.

Soul Summons-
Manifest as a mechanic is going to be very strange for people to get used to. This is essentially a 2 mana 2/2. I suppose having a Manifest Bear was going to be inevitable though I think it could have (or maybe even should have) been a colorless spell. Its possible Ugin is the only colorless non-artifact spell in the set because if you were doing other ones Soul Summons seems like the perfect candidate. Once you decide that his should be a colored spell basically any color would do. I would have liked this in blue since it represents an inherent form of trickery. Hilariously enough, just a 2/2 for 2 in green isn't good enough nowadays. White is fine, but I am surprised this is a colored spell. Obviously in EDH this is a way to put morph creatures into play on the cheap and its decent in conjunction with Sensei's Divining Top.  That's probably not good enough but that's where this is. Manifest as a mechanic is going to rely heavily on library manipulation to be good.

Valorous Stance-
This is obviously a crazy good card. Reid Duke spoke about it at length. I'll simply say that designing this much flexibility and strength must have cost White a lot of its budget for instants in this set. In terms of EDH I always judge white instants by Sunforger. This is a pretty damn good Sunforger target because of its flexibility, effectively being two targets in one. Outside of Sunforger this is still a good card but other effects are bigger and you'd be more comfortable draw them over having the timing based half of Valorous Stance.

Dragonscale General-
This guy is pretty damn good. The idea is that you leave your weakest creature on defense and make use of everything else, pumping up your smallest dude. You can also do the attacking pre-combat and surprise your opponent with a huge blocker if he doesn't want to block. This card plays really well with convoke. I can see this getting played in EDH decks that are either really aggressive or like the set of convoke cards, like Rhys. I love the alternate art, but the regular art is...iffy. 


Blue:
Jeskai Sage-
 This is a pretty good card. Prowess remains unchanged from KTR, and on the Sage the idea is that they don't want to block it since its on death trigger replaces itself. But if they don't block it, the Prowess can add up. Its a unique combination and it might work out in conjunction with Seeker of the Way. For the purposes of EDH, there aren't as many Blue value deck running around. Most Blue decks are either in the camp of huge mana threats or tricksy instant speed shenanigans. Jeskai Sage feels like it belongs in a Black deck. That's not to say it won't see play. Decks that want what it does want it very badly, its just not going to have a wide appeal.

Sage Eye Avengers-
This card is dangerous. It has the potential to lock your opponent out of the game in 1v1. That it costs 6 mana and doesn't protect itself are why its not being regarded with fear. I understand the idea behind it but printing something this frustrating to play against is something they won't do often. That said, the interplay between Prowess and the trigger is very cool. In EDH I can see this coming into play off a Sneak Attack or with some other haste granting effect and foiling someones best laid plans. Alt art is superior here as well.

 Jeskai Infiltrator-
This card is very odd. It might just be because of Manifest but this set has a much higher number of bazaar cards than usual. I like the idea of it hiding itself among other creatures, and only becoming hidden after it has "infiltrated" the enemy. The card has a solid logical consistency, that will unfortunately not do enough in EDH to be worthwhile.

Temporal Trespass-
I was curious how far they would go in on a delve creature. Indeed, after the shake up that delve has caused in eternal formats I was curious if we would even see the mechanic. I'm happy that they didn't shy away in the second set since delve is one of the better mechanics they've done in years. It has very obvious rewards and a pushes you to do things differently than you would if you didn't have delve cards in your deck. It's also obvious to your opponent what you're doing if you play things like thoughtscour or mental note.This card has one of the best lines of text in magic. Between this, Treasure Cruise, and Dig Through Time we basically have delve versions of the blue power, like Time Spiral all over again. This card though, unlike the others, is probably not good enough. In EDH the cheapness doesn't count for as much since in terms of time you can generally play Temporal Manipulation faster. It also eats itself, and extra-turns that are non-infinite are pretty miserable for everyone involved. Outside of EDH this is UUU, which makes it super hard to cast. It also takes 8 cards, the most of the delve spells, and doesn't replace itself in the graveyard for future delve action. I'm happy they made this card since it wouldn't have felt genuine to make delve recall and not delve timewalk. I'm happy the card that saw print is just on the edge of playable.

Black:
Crux of Fate-
This is it. The whole point of going into the past. This is also a new black board wipe. I'm curious how often the choice will be relevant. They wouldn't have made the condition if the condition didn't have a chance of mattering. For EDH it certainly has a better than average chance to be a real choice. That said, there are already plenty of wraths in Black. If you want to pay more than four mana for a wrath then there are better options. The exceptions being Skittles, Karrthus, or some other Dragon general where its a board wipe for your opponents and not you.

Gurmag Angler-
This guy is not some revolutionary reinvention of the wheel, but he is amazingly solid. A one mana vanilla 5/5 is probably as far as they are going to push delve on the creature side. He's actually a pretty solid card for EDH as well. Anything with Greater Good is probably in the market for this dude, as is Jarad. Hilariously, this guy is the opposite of what you want in Varolz since his cost starts high and gets low. He will also probably show up in eternal formats so there is that.

Hooded Assassin-
Ok, this card isn't going to be showing up in EDH for lots of reasons. It always has a shot in assassin tribal.

Soulflayer-
I've seen more buzz around this guy than Gurmag Angler, and they are like Treasure Cruise versus Dig Through Time. Sure this guy is certainly splashier and can do more overall more, but Angler is cheaper on actual mana spent, and naturally a point of power and toughness ahead. In EDH Soulflayer has a much better time of picking up abilities, but if you are playing a deck that can take advantage of those abilities you kind of want those cards in the graveyard. Angler can be anything, even if its more anything its better than having to eat your skittles or whathaveyou in Black. This will see a good amount of play, and it will be really good. Often. I'm just not sure if I want this or a solid lump of size for very cheap you get from Angler. The other thing to absorb here is that if you cheat this guy into play he won't have the opportunity to get any abilities. I can see him showing up in graveyard oriented decks that are for some reason light on reanimation.

Archfiend of Depravity-
5 mana 5/4 flyers with upside are generally good. This one's upside is that he hampers strategies that want to grow wide. At any table of four players usually there's going to be someone doing a token/creature strategy that wants to have lots and lots of dudes. This guy is a respectable body for a reasonable cost whose enchantment hurts opponents only. He's perfect in Kaalia or other prison oriented decks.
 Also, the regular art is so much better than the alt art it hurts.

Palace Siege-
The Oversold Cemetery effect on this card is good, but wouldn't warrent a five mana price tag in EDH. The Polluted Bonds on the other hand is going to pay for itself in spades. Getting to cast Siphon Soul every upkeep is going to be pretty brutal. The obvious place for this card is in Oloro but it fits basically anywhere that you play Necropotence or other heavy life payment options. That it can switch between the two modes makes me want this in a B/W shell that eats lots of creatures, Teysa springs to mind.

Red:
Flamerush Rider-
Wow. Dash is a great mechanic that does a lot of very interesting things and has tons of room to grow. I am curious if they got into Fate Reforged and wanted to make more Raid cards and had just run out of ideas. Raid was a perfunctory mechanic but it had no tension to it. It essentially said, cast this card in your second main phase. There weren't any real trade offs aside from limited. Rush on the other hand is great. You can get the attack trigger NOW or have some pretty awesome effects later. It can trap you into needing to rush the creature over and over to keep getting the trigger. However, the ability in EDH to have global haste enablers makes cards with dash very dangerous since the all are going to have on attack triggers. Flamerush Rider is going to be played in lots of decks because the value is crazy high. One consequence of having multiple opponents is that usually someone is open to being attacked on the ground, and the trigger doesn't specify who the token is put into play attacking, letting you get tricky. Obviously having evasion for him would help but he should be able to do his thing most of the time. This guy is going to be really solid in Urabrask or Feldon. Paired with blue you can put him in decks that like Palinchron or other Dead-Eye Navigator targets. Dash also enables another axis of strategies, enters the battlefield effects. Something like Warstorm Surge is great with Dash in general, and with Flamerush in particular since he generates another trigger each turn he attacks. He is all the value.

Goblin Heelcutter-
This is going to be a type 2 card. The saving grace is goblin tribal decks, and even then its more for repeatable enters the battlefield effects.

Outpost Siege-
Now we're talking. This is totally worth four mana. This could have cost 3RR and still been played. Red doesn't have a density of card advantage cards, so everyone they print pushes us closer and closer being able to play mono-red value. Obviously the Dragon side is way more of a blow out than getting to play an extra card a turn. I just like that sometimes you have a top and no creatures and can just get to draw an extra card every turn. The Goblin Bombardment side is worded in such a way as to work with Dash and blinks, which is great. It also hits creatures, which is surprising. I shouldn't have to state how good this is in a deck like Marath but...this thing is really good in decks like Marath. This is a primer red card and fits all over the place.

Rageform-
This card is very very strange. It is ostensibly a four mana 2/2 double strike. The trick is that you can then turn the manifested card face up and straight up murder people if the creature was big enough. Its a risky card and probably won't see much if any play in EDH because of how many things have to go right for it. I award points for style though, and for templating this in such a way that I understood what it did in one reading.

Green:

Frontier Mastodon-
This is a 3 mana 3/2 that becomes a 3 mana 4/3 if you have ferocious. I like the idea that if you have ferocious and land this guy then you have two feroucious guys for other ferocious cards. That a lot of ferocious. Unfortunately, in EDH there are better deals.

Sandsteppe Mastodon-
Lots of Elephants in this set. This guy is a pretty good deal for seven mana. I just don't know where I would want this deal. Please comment if you can think of somewhere to put him.

Shamanistic Revelation-
Five mana sorceries that draw you cards don't usually inspire a lot of confidence since you'll need mana afterward to cast the cards unless you have a reliquary tower. Shamanistic Revelation I think has quite a few things that change that though. First, its green so having the mana afterward is certainly do-able between Cradle and bugs. The other effect has the potential to gain you enough life to survive to use the cards. The play pattern here seems to be that you spend your hand playing out mana bugs and whatever big dudes you have, then refill with this card and heal up from the first few turns of inaction. This feels like a green Sphinx's Revelation since you get cards and time to use them, and requires a lot of investment to make it worth it. This fits into any deck with the play pattern of Elves.

Temur War Shaman-
This is basically only good in decks heavy with morph/manifest. So basically nowhere in EDH. The only deck I can think of where I would play a decent amount of morph creatures and is green is Animar. And Animar doesn't need the effect. The alt art is probably better, but this is the only one that's close.

Whisperwood Elemental-
This is the manifest card I'm most interested in. Its ability to continually alter the top card of your deck works really well in conjuction with Sylvan Library in the absence of shuffles and provides a ton of wrath protection. That the face down creature aren't green is slightly annoying for effects like Regal Force, but getting through a large part of your deck is interesting in combination with graveyard recursion. Essentially manifest gets to draw you cards straight up in this situation. This probably goes in some G/B grindy attrition affair, something like Varolz or Jarad.

Multicolor:

Yasova Dragonclaw -
The first legend! I would hesitate to build this as deck in EDH, though Tiny Leaders is apparently a thing. The problem with it is the power restriction, and the timing restriction. And the mana cost. That's not to say that the card is bad. There are tons of utility creatures to take, use, and then feed to Gargadon. Its that it does cost you a significant amount. She does have trample and is very aggressive. If you're in the market for something attack oriented this is your gal. As a creature, Yasova requires 6 mana on your turn to take a creature with power 3 or less. Add in the color restriction and its going to take the alignment of the stars to have a place for Yasova.


Soulfire Grand Master-
This guy is really really cool. The design is something that we have been waiting to see for quite some time. The activated ability is expensive, so it can't be the point we rely on. So the question is, are there Jeskai decks that are viable that play large burn spells? I think the answer is a resounding yes. Unfortunately, you can't rescue spells that you fetch with Sunforger, but that's not to say the two are mutually exclusive. They both reward R/W/U spell heavy decks. I think this guy would get played more than it should be just because of how novel it is, but its restricted to Jeskai colors which pretty definitely line up with its abilities.

Ethereal Ambush-
As an instant and two cards this might be ok. Again, the viability of manifest is entirely reliant on how well it interacts with library manipulation, and how close it is to "draw a card". This one feels like it has a chance since its an instant and thus lets you cast it and then untap and unmorph immediately. I wouldn't put it in everything, but I'd like to try it in something like Momir Vig or something of that nature.

Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury-
I like this guy. As a general he's going to get Dashed out and put back into your hand frequently. That he triggers per dragon feels like a teaser for the next set, and it makes me feel like the unspoiled legendary dragons are also going to have an on-dragon trigger. He fits with tokens, haste, and aggression. Depending on how aggressive you want to be he can fit in Rakdos or Karrthus. On his own he works with B/Rs large number of cards designed to make the game end as fast as possible.

A good showing so far. This set looks like its trying to up the complexity level with some new, bizarre mechanics. 

Clarity versus Complexity

I think a question that I have been wrestling with over the last few days is what is the audience for my game? Who do I want to be playing it? After reading New World Order by Maro, I was definitely thinking in those terms. That you should design for the lowest common denominator. That you should take pains not to alienate new players. Then I started playing Path of Exile. Path eschews all of the conventions that Maro was talking about. Its incredibly complex and makes basically no move to explain itself to a new player. Decisions are essentially permanent, and you can accidentally get your characters into a fail state. These two philosophies seem to be irreconcilable, but both games are thriving. Why is that? Is clarity not important?

Clarity is a goal of a game but I think that Path shows that games can have many routes to the same goal: fun. Path and Magic both have extraordinary "end game" complexity that is centered around Building. In Magic you build a deck, in Path you build a character. Magic tries to walk new players through this process by putting emphasis on limited first, then slowly graduating players to standard, modern, and the true eternal formats, where there are more cards than you can really know what to do with, and interaction is so dense that every decision matters. Path has the same insane density of interaction  as an eternal format, but unlike Magic doesn't give you the experience of building in initial formats. Path begins with the equivalent of Modern. It makes the assumption that you have played games of its type before and doesn't bother you with introducing you to the basics of an action rpg. Magic, even though its been around for over twenty years and has a truly outrageous retention rate (seriously, the statistics say that once you start playing magic you just don't stop. Its more addicting than food.), is still trying to appeal to people who have never played a tcg before. Because of this, and because Magic only releases 1 product a semester, it takes a long time before an introductory player is skilled enough and has enough knowledge to play with the most powerful cards.

Is Magic's New World Order, its emphasis on clarity, its ponderous material game model, doing it more harm than good? Fuck no. Magic is growing, and has been growing, every year. They clearly have a good business model.  Is their game as fun as it could be if they let commons have complex interactions? I would certainly enjoy Magic more if every set was the equivalent of Time Spiral. Am I the majority? Wizards has very clear reasons to think I am not.

Is Path, by assuming a base of knowledge, not explaining itself well to new players, having very obscure interactions, and punishing its players for mistakes, doing more harm than good? Fuck no. Path is growing perhaps more quickly than the small-ish New Zealand company can keep up with. While not very scienctific, Reddit is the game's largest community and has doubled in size in a year. I found the game difficult to pick up and was turned off, and it was only through some detailed help that I started to figure out what was important in the game. Am I in the majority? GGG clearly has clear reasons to think I am not.

So the question is, and its one that's come up on Mostly Walking, how much should you assume your audience knows? What barrier to entry is acceptable? These are not simple questions with a definitive answer. This is a core principle to the game you are making. Just like any logical process, the important thing is to identify what your assumptions are in the first place, and go from there.

Review of the Commander 2014 product.

White:

Angel of Dire Hour- This is unlikely to see much play. The non-bo with cheating and high mana cost combine to make this a very niche card. However, if it was doing something proactive that might be ok, but that you have to wait until your opponent does something to cast it is the last nail in the coffin. Passing with seven mana up is a huge tell. The only place I can think of in White/X where having that much mana up isn't odd would be Rasputin, and he doesn't need it.

Angelic Field Marshal - I generally like the Lieutenant mechanic and Vigilance is a pretty strong keyword to give to your whole army. The problem of course is that if you don't have your general, this card is awful. White/X decks do have plenty of options for Hexproof commanders though, so this might find a home in one of them.

Benevolent Offering - While not the strongest in the offering cycle, this certainly seems like a "fixed" version of the Tempest cycle. I like the offerings because you decide who gets what. As an instant this is a good way to rescue people, and there are plenty of decks where the congregate effect will give you a ton of life, and giving an opponent some life and some dudes isn't going to hurt you over much. Also, this is Sunforger-able

Comeuppance - A huge blow out. This can just demolish whole gameplans. Craterhoof had better be on notice. This is also Sunforger-able. I see this going in basically any white deck.

Containment Priest - This is the big one. This card was clearly designed to be a Rest in Peace style hoser. However, having Flash and attacking for two make it one of the strongest hate cards ever printed. This won't just be great in EDH, this was clear made with Eternal formats in mind as it stops a huge number of decks from functioning. In commander, you need to be espcially careful with building this into your deck. A lot of the ways people generate advantage is making things for free. I don't know where I'd put it, but pairing it with tutors seems like a must.That puts us in w/b, or w/g. Its possible some version of Ghave Stax would love this guy. This also fits into something like Rafiq where you are playing lots of Hatebears like Teeg and Spirit of the Labyrinth. Its more than likely going to make more of a splash in legacy.

Deploy to the Front - This can make a ton of dudes, but we don't really need more of these effects. The Rebound token maker, Increasing Vigilance, etc. If you feel you need more density for your Rhys, Marath, or Ghave creations this is for you, but odds are they could have made a different card instead and we wouldn't have lost anything.

Fell the Mighty - A pretty unique card. At 5 mana this is pretty affordable. A big downside is that it is a targeted spell so it can be fizzled. The upside is that your saproling army can easily survive the card and then take over the game. When you are playing with low power dudes getting roadblocked by green monsters or reanimated fatties is pretty common. This lets you get one better than them without costing you much of your board in the process.

Hallowed Spiritkeeper - My immediate thought was Karador. This guy has the potential to be really sought after. The tokens fly, which makes them way more useful as blockers than normal tokens. They are white for Teysa, and there can be a lot of them. In a deck like Vish Kal or most builds of Ghave having a guy that makes more guys when you eat him is supremely powerful. That he makes so MANY dudes makes him super strong, but even his normal use as Wrath insurance is totally fine. So Teysa, Ghave, Vish Kal, Karador.

Jazal Goldmane - 4 mana 4/4 First Strike are fine stats. First Strike in white or red is always a solid addition because of how equipment focused those colors are in EDH. The ability is expensive to activate. Mirror Entity essentially does this, but is cheaper on the front end and lets you dodge spell resolutions by poping for 0. This only really comes into its own if you can active it twice. If you can attack with 4-5 dudes and activate this 2 times then why haven't you already won the game? Overall a cool card but to play him at all you need to play him as a general and go BIG with your mana.

Nahiri, the Lithomancer - First of all, I hate you WOTC for not giving us a Serra card :(. Nahiri seems decidedly meh to me, especially as a commander. She does protect herself, but having the second half of Stoneforge means you have to find all of your equipment yourself. Going for her ult seems like a waste of time since you want to be playing lots of equipment already and would rather recover lost cards or play things for free. That said, I think there are plenty of homes for her. Jor Kadeen will love her. Voltron decks in general like these abilities, but W/R is notorius for needing to come out swinging and she helps you do that very easily, and provides some long term advantage over the rest of the game. I personally want to try her in Narset.


Blue:

Aether Gale - Sorcery speed is less than ideal but 6 is a lot of permanents for five mana. This would let you brick someones offense or defense, and it also lets you reuse comes into play effects. This will find a home in something that wants to go big on its mana, some kind of Cradle oriented deck, or something with tons of artifact mana. This could even combo with Sol Ring/Mana Crypt to get a huge refund on the cost. So, Teferi PW, Rasputin, Momir Vig.

Breaching Leviathan - This is not really worth 9 mana, and unfortunately the version you cheat is not worth the effort.

Domineering Will - At four mana this is going to be annoying to get people to walk into since blue mages with mana up make people play much more cautiously. That said you probably play it in any number of trick oriented decks since it is capable of so many shenanigans.

Dulcet Sirens - Morph has always been very meh outside of limited. If you are dedicated to morph already for whatever reason this is fine. I might put it in an ability focused deck like Merike Re Berette face up since the ability is pretty strong for manipulating combat.

Intellectual Offering - The strongest offering and one of the strongest cards in the set.You get to give one player cards and no mana, and another mana but no cards. Meanwhile you play this with mana dorks or artifacts and you will frequently find that his is free or even gains you mana. This is a combo oriented card that can easily make the difference between going off successfully or bricking. I'm playing this in Dralnu and would play it in Sharuum, Teferi, Merike, Edric, tons of places.

Reef Worm - A niffty little number. This is a serious food dude. Playing him with sacrifice outlets lets you generate huge amounts of value and end you up with a serious threat. This won't go in everything, but in decks like Sidisi, Momir Vig, basically anything that like Greater Good, its going to be a house.

Stitcher Geralf - At five mana and three to activate, this guy is a bit underwhelming. That his active can snag Eldrazi make him much better you get big tokens out of it. Its sad you lose the work you've made on their graveyard but that's eh. He seems destined to be paired with black for reanimation and the clause is a May so you can keep juicy targets in peoples graveyards and just take the beaters if you want to. I just wish he wasn't so expensive while simultaneously being fragile. The essential problem is that his pieces don't work well together as a single card. You need a) lots of mana, b) to care about mill beyond the trigger, c) large enough dudes to eat yourself, d) ways to make him speed up his effect. I just don't see it happening as a general and only something like Sidisi, Mimeoplasm, maybe Sedris, can use this effect if they want to.

Stormsurge Kraken - A very solid card. Hexproof 5/5s for 5 are worthy of consideration when playing voltron anyway. Then giving them upside in a style they already want to play is gravy. I see him slotting in decks like Geist, Narset, maybe Rafique. Ironically, you don't really want to give this guy evasion, you just want to make him bigger so you can keep drawing cards and abyssing your opponents.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage - This guy is great. As a general he's probably the best of the bunch, his -1 letting him get away with huge plays. His +1 is solid at digging through your deck. Its not actually drawing cards so he is anti-synergy with things like Cavern Skulker, but gets around Spirit of the Labrynth and friends. If you get to his ult and he doesn't die to it or gets replayed then you essentially win the game. Will be an allstar in 5 color walker concoctions. I do want to spend an extra minute on his -1 because a lot of people are understating how strong it is. There are lots of cards in EDH that produce multiple mana when tapped. From perennial favorites Sol Ring and Mana Crypt, to bigger numbers like Gilded Lotus and Thran Dynamo. In our lands we always have Ancient Tomb or Temple of the False God. In mono-blue we could easily cast Teferi -1 and cast kozilik or Ulamog. That isn't even counting the number of tricks he enables with tap abilities like Sticher Geralf, Arcanis, or Quicksilver Amulet. And unlike Tezzeret, he isn't limited to artifacts so he can easily give creatures pseudo-vigilance. He also starts with 5 loyalty, making it pretty easy to get off the -1 a few times before letting him die or starting to build up again. And all of this was just in mono-u! Imagine if you paired him with Green and got to play with Cradle, mana dorks, and fat green dudes. This guy is what a planeswalker should be for EDH. He goes in anything with big mana or tricks and can easily play as a general.

Well of Ideas - This is certainly a new idea for how to make Howling Mine playable. Obviously great in Nekusaur, but that dude didn't need help. The price tag is certainly steep. If you can absolutely play 3 or more cards a turn, a la some deck with Exploration or multiple removal spells, or Storm oriented deck, then this is actually pretty good. That you get so many more cards than any one opponent is why, and frequently you'll cast this, draw 2 cards immeditaly, then everyone else draws 1 and someone spends a card to kill it, making it a 3 for 3 on the table. That's a fine gamble when the payoff draws you 4 cards and untaps all your mana. Specific and kinda risky, but very good where its good.


Black:

Demon of Wailing Agonies - This lieutenant isn't as good as Blue's but is plenty solid. The key here is to get him in with Haste. Pairing him with Kaalia or Sedris has some real potential. Edicts aren't played enough in the format when there are tons of creatures that are difficult to kill. This guy has some logistical problems but the effect is very strong. Like the white one though, he is basically useless without your commander, putting you are risk of bricking with him.

Flesh Carver - Sacrifice engines are plentiful enough that just stuffing them into a deck without thinking it through isn't worthwhile anymore. This guy though is pretty great if you are eating 1/1. Since the effect doesn't care about the size of the dude, eating saprolings essentially doubles the size of your avalible power and toughness. This guy is pretty bad in mono-b. Paired with white, he's is pretty good. Vish loves that he is a double big dude. There are some solid white loops that he can enable as well with Karmic Guide. Vish does those loops a bit better for sure since Flesh Carver has an activation cost, but Carver is much easier to get into play. The real place for Carver though is paired with Green, eating Deranged Hermit and friends. I am likely to try him in Ghave since he turns a 1/1 into 2 1/1s. Its an expensive process, but his trigger makes him solid value for birthing pod, greater good or other effects.

Ghoulcaller Gisa - Solid. She can make a lot of zombies very easily. The problem is that she costs 5. Her active cost is only B so she's easy to use once you get there. She'd be great with Merike since she can always eat what Merike grabs, and that deck already runs thousand-year elixir. I would not try to build her on her own since she really wants to have a Cradle to turn all of her hard work into mana. And there are more interesting mono black generals to build. Also, she can always turn 1 zombie into 2 zombies, making her not need you to eat your plays to grow your army.

Infernal Offering - I spoke above about how criminally underplayed Edicts are. This is an edict that lets you trade up one dude, or retrigger comes into play effects. Splitting who you choose for this makes it really solid, and there is no targeting involved anywhere so its hard for opponents to figure out what your doing until its too late. This goes in basically any deck with black mana.

Malicious Affliction - The restrictions on this are double black and non-black creatures. This seems like something I'd be willing to try for 2 mana if I am sufficently in black to keep BB open on opposing turns. Getting morbid wouldn't be difficult at all. This seems like it would be amazing in Toshiro Umezawa.dec though it is a good rate just about anywhere. Not enough people just play single target removal spells.

Necromantic Selection - This is a great board wipe that lets you abuse etb triggers on the return. That it exiles itself is unfortunate, but if it didn't I could see this setting up loops really easily. Still, this will see plenty of play as printed. I can see a deck like Geth including this alongside Life's Finale, but this is not particularly groundbreaking. Its just a well exectued card.

Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath - Apart from the badass art and story, Mr. Nixilis is kind of lacking. I think he is probably the weakest of the walkers both as a general and as a walker. He is all about his ult, but the ult requires you to have creatures to eat. This makes him very conditional. Considering the amount of work that has to go into making him reach his ult he really has to be judged on his +2 and -2. +2 is minor lifedrain. If put in an Oloro deck he would be ok addition. The -2 is ok. If you are just trading off draining and making demons Ob is ok, which means the card overall is meh. Oloro is the only place I can think of for him.

Overseer of the Damned - This guy is the real deal. You can cheat him which makes him great in reanimator or Kaalia strategies. The part where he turns opposing deaths into blockers or otherwise food is great. He has a high price tag for normal use, but you really shouldn't bother paying retail. Anything that is an answer and an engine in one is going to be a hit. Look to put this anywhere you think you'd play Angel of Despair or Ashen Rider.

Raving Dead - randomness makes for terrible deckbuilding, put in your deck at your own risk.

Spoils of Blood - This seems like a good deal, but beware. This isn't just Kicker on your Damnation, you have to spend a card to make this dude and there are a lot of easier ways to make large creatures.

Wake the Dead - This is a supremly powerful card. You need a full yard and a lot of mana, but that there are no restrictions on the size of the creature comnig back you can abuse tons of etb effects. Bringing back FoF sphinx Rune Scarred Demon, Bogardan Hellkite, Terrastodon, etc. This fits in most builds of Mimeoplasm, Sidisi, Sedris, Sharuum, Jarad, basically anywhere with mana and graveyard.

Red:

Now for the red cards, but before I start on them I want to challenge an assurtion that people make all the time, which is that Red is the worst color in EDH. I suppose Red is the worst if you absolutely need to choose one, but its not by a large margine. White is on the same basic level of power as red. The only thing that lacks is mono-red, and that's because its not a passive color. Mono-red requires you to be proactive. Urabrask is my favorite mono-red general because he can just attack people to death and make enormous plays.Red is not the value color. EDH players  as a whole tend to be more Timmy or Johnny or Vorthos. They appreciate huge creatures or insane value. Red is so often about effeniceny and maximizing resources, which is not the mode that people in EDH like to play. I do like the direction that they took for the red deck and it feels like it expands the depth of the color. For being the shatter color, red does like its artifacts. I think their reasoning is thar red is creative and artifacts are essentially in-game art for the red genius types, making up their half of Izzet.

Bitter Feud - This is a card you have to read through a couple times to understand, and in the end isn't worth the effort you put into it. Not for 5 mana anyway.

Daretti, Scrap Savant - A very solid card. The first line of text is the best. Getting significant velocity in red is precious. The second line of text is only slightly worse as getting to repeated trash for treasure a Sad Robot or something similar is tremendous value. This alone brings red into the space that most EDH players are looking to play in. The ult is obviously ridiculous, but you will probably never get there, even when combined with doubling season. I could see building this guy as a general, though he's probably still better in a R/X deck as a source of tremendous velocity and value. I wish I could play him in Sharuum :(

Dualcaster Mage - This guy is going to do tons of work. Being a creature means you can blink him, reanimate him, recast him, and generally squeeze the effect out again and again. Would have been cool at 2 mana though I can see why they decided against that.

Feldon of the Third Path - 10/10. This guy nails every category, flavor, mechanics, playability, and isn't some default good card either. He requires you to plan around him to maximise him, while still just being good enough in most decks. The activation cost stops him from being kiki-jiki 2.0, but thats fine. Another card in red that's straight up value. The fact that you sacrifice the token is also pretty sweet, combines well with wurmcoil and Jens. As a general you need to do the normal tricks for low health non-haste activatiors, like Merike, Arcanis, etc. He is mono-color and low cost though so getting him out there won't be too hard. Played in other decks he has the potential to be monsterous in green or black decks where there are some truely insane creatures that routinely populate your graveyard. Between him and Daretti, the red deck is worth buying on its own.

Impact Resonance - A neat trick that you can cast when other people attack each other. Also can be grabbed with Sunforger.

Incite Rebellion - Would have made a killer instant. As is, this will kill the Rhys player, and will hurt most people but you can do better for 6 mana at sorcery speed.

Scrap Mastery - The artifact living death, or Mass Trash. This obviously has few places it truely fits. Its worth noting that this will usually be Shatterstorm for everyone else, like living death was wrath for everyone else. Its also sacrifice so Darksteel Forge won't stop it. If you see people going for tons of artifact mana and you can easily incorporate Faithless Looting type effects then this will be a powerful play in your deck. Jhoira especially can use this with huge artifact monsters.

Tyrant's Familiar - This guy isn't my favorite lieutenant, but he's not far off. The ability will flat kill most
creatures, and haste makes it happen immediately. Worth the 7 mana if you have your general. If you don't have your general this guy is a lot more viable than w or b since he retains the haste. Obviously great in Karrthus or a red deck with piles of mana. Something of a non-bo with Kaalia with the on attack clause.

Volcanic Offering - Ho boy this is a spicy one. 5 Mana instant kill target guy blow up target Cradle might have been good enough to print on its own in red. Also making two other permanents that aren't your go away? Damn. 4 permanents for 5 mana is an exceptional rate. My 1 complaint is that you can't Sunforger for it :(. Put this in things and you will be happy for it.

Warmonger Hellkite - This is fine but not exceptional. Dragon tribal decks get a new toy I guess. Using him to pump other armies is a neat trick but not worth the cost.

Creeper Hulk - Trample is great and very underrated. This reminds me strongly of []. The cost of the ability is higher and the size is smaller, and it includes color on the activation. Trample is probably worth that trade off since you are in green and will have plenty of mana lying around.

Green:

Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - This chick is totally fine, but as an amalgamation of various other effects. Her +2 is essentially the same as putting a forest into play tapped in terms of mana development, but of course creating food goes well with all sorts of effects. Her -2 makes her an answer to one of the most problematic permanents for green to deal with - Torpor Orb. So often green decks are packed to the gills with Woodfall Primus type creatures and no real naturalizes. Her ult combines with her +2 and natural green deckbuilding to draw you a lot of cards and you can get there pretty easily. I would like to build her as a commander. Now that we have seen all the PWs, I think I can rank them:
As a General -
Teferi
Freyalise
Daretti
Nahiri
Ob Nixilis

As a card -
Teferi
Daretti
Nahiri
Freyalise
Ob Nixilis

Nahiri wins out for the third spot because Freyalise is in a color that doesn't need more mana or answers from one of its 99, but having an all in one general is pretty solid. White needs the help to shortcut mana and making free dudes for your voltron deck is just solid, and it extends the life of your equipment.

Graveshifter - This is eh. The only green tribe people want to build is elves, and when you start including other colors this gets outpaced fast, and can give your opponents back things that they can plan around.

Lifeblood Hydra - This card is begging to be eaten by Disicple of Bolas. This guy needs a TON of mana so the fewer colors you play with it the better. It also doesn't fit into a deck as a reanimation target. Trample is a great keyword here. He's going to demand an answer, which makes the second half of the card much better. I can see him fitting into Jarad, Omnath, or some other big mana deck. It comes with Cradle so big ups.

Siege Behemoth - This guy is going to straight up murder a lot of people. Hexproof is insane to put on this guy. You still do general damage with his ability so this is like super trample for generals. Otherwise its a little worse than trample since if you don't kill your opponent you leave yourself open to counter attack but he makes a hell of a pairing with Hoof, and giving this guy haste is totally crazy. Putting him in some Naya creation like Uril as a way to shortcut blockers is pretty good.

Song of the Dryads - This card could see legacy play and is a legit green answer to problematic creatures, green's largest weakness. Put this in things with green mana that don't have lots of answers.

Sylvan Offering - This is by far the worst of the offerings as there are much better ways to make tokens.

Thunderfoot Baloth - 6 mana 5/5 trample is an ok back up mode but with your general this guy echos Siege Behemoth. I would say Siege Behemoth is better because of Hexproof but the +2/+2 to your team is really solid. This also doesn't need haste to do its thing. Depending on how much your general costs this might be worth it just as a cheatable overrun. Overall great in something like Hazazon or Rith.

Titania, Protector of Argoth - This chick is very stong as both just a creature and as a general. She absolutely demands to be paired with Crucible of Worlds. She is very likely to automatically come with a 5/3 since you can return fetchlands. There are plenty of other utility lands that sacrifice like Dustbowl, Wasteland, Strip mine, Centaur Garden. If you start lookings to other colors she picks up Cephalid Colliseum, Krosan Verge, and tons of other stuff. She also interacts with Devastating Dreams and Squandered Resources. A very good card all around.As a creature she fits in Azusa best, though basically anything green is going to get milage out of both of her triggers.

Wave of Vitriol - This is a crazy effect that works best if you have lots of basics and mana creatures. Will be a staple in mono-green decks though no deck can really avoid splashing themselves as no artifact, no enchantments, and no non-basics is a steep order. That said a Cradle based deck could do this decently. Be prepared for this to come out of your opponents decks from now on, and add some basics!

Wolfcaller's Howl - This is decidedly meh. It works but its not the most effcient at what it does.

Artifact and Land:

Arcane Lighthouse - This is about as niche as a land can get. It does its job well, but unless you are noticing that you can't deal with non-targetable dudes don't bother with this. Also, this can be a political card since you don't have to have the removal yourself.

Flamekin Village - Hall of the Bandit Lord and Salyer's Stronghold are both celebrated ultility lands and this is somewhere between them. Sure, your dude costs 2 more for haste instead of 3 life. It only gains haste and not vigilance or power but goes in mono-red. It enters tapped, but unlike the others, this generates colored mana which is a huge upgrade. This goes in most things that have red mana, assuming you want to attack or use abilities immediately I can see this going in Feldon, Kaalia, Kresh, Jor Kadeen.

Myriad Landscape - A land that becomes two land. Great with Titania or mana hungry decks. This is great because it turns a non-basic into 2 basics in case of non-basic hate.

Assault Suit - An interesting card. Expensive to get to, but has the option of politiking an opponent to death. Its a may so you can just use it get +2/+2 and can't be sacrificed.

Commander's Sphere - Not as effecient as Mind Stone, but baking in the sacrifice cost up front means you don't have give up two mana later. It also lets you eat it in response to board wipes. Taping for colored mana is really solid as most artifact mana taps for colorless.

Crown of Doom - This is a funsie thing that I think does a good job for the people that like that sort of thing.

Loreseeker's Stone - The idea here was solid but the execution leaves something to be desired. I wish it cost 0 then 1 more for each card in hand. At 6 to cast initially, a lower per active cost would have been really good. As is, I don't think there's anywhere I'd want to play this over Dreamstone Hedron.

Masterwork of Ingenuity - I don't really think I ever want to equipment so hard that I'd want this in addition to Scuplting Steel, which already does this. The only reason this could be ok is that equipment costs exist and this basically just adds one to equip costs. Its very marginal but if you play Nahiri the general you might want it.

Unstable Obelisk - Cute but its SO MUCH MANA. There are better colorless options realistically.








This is a very solid product altogether. Way more hits than misses.