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Total Votes : 3
The First
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:43 pm
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
--- description ---
The Future Sight pre-release promises to be a very fun environment. Do not miss it.
--- end description ---

Only one more week and we can all take a glimpse into the future of our beloved game. Next week is the pre-release weekend of the last set of the “Time Spiral” block. The Circle of the Cereal will be complete. "Snap" & "Crackle" were both very promising sets and both have some very cool cards, new mechanics and their typical cards. I’d say that those sets were worth the investment so far. “Pop” is also very promising. New templates, new keywords and alternate costs for older mechanics.

I am sure that most people already saw a lot of spoiler cards of the new set. To me, it seems that the Future Sight expansion set will be at least as good as the Planar Chaos one. While Time Spiral featured cards like Arkoma, Angel of Wrath and dozens of other cool cards from the past, Planar Chaos has shifted the color pie. Who foresaw a mono green haste deck? Or a decent counter spell for White? Card draw engine for Green, decent mass removal for Black, blast for Blue? Red got a “very decent” land destruction card.

Enough with the past and the present already. I am curious about the future. What is there to say about the future? Aside from a new template, the great Wizards succeeded to invent a set where nobody can clearly say which cards are going to be hits and which ones will be unplayable. The main reason for that is the mayhem in the set. There are cards with multiple mechanics on a card like

Sprout Swarm – 1G
Instant
Convoke
Buyback 3
Put a 1/1 green saproling creature token into play.

In short: pay 2 mana for a 1/1 creature at instant speed. You can convoke it to play it, reducing the cost. As a plus, you can also get the spell back to hand for a mere 3 mana more. But then, you would be paying 5 mana for a 1/1 creature token…

It seems to be great at first, but paying 5 mana for a 1/1 just doesn’t seem right. Even if you can tap creatures to reduce the cost. Nevertheless, I can see this card become very popular.

This is just 1 example. What about a card which will give a creature -3/-3 and that has cycling 2 and a madness cost of 3B? Or a 2/2 Rebel with Flying & Haste for 2B with an echo cost of “discard a card”. Both can be very useful in madness decks but for some reason, it just does not seem wise to me to rely on those cards.

There is also a crazy land cycle; a black land with dredge 2. Great if you are playing a land destruction - read a Bust or Wildfire - deck with some signets and a Phyrexian totem, to get the mana generation up and running again. A blue one with transmute 1UU. This means that you would pay mana to get a card out of your deck that is normally free to play. Ancestral Vision is a good example but there are some interesting free of cost cards in Future Sight as well. A green graft 1 land… Could be cool. Play a land, play a creature and make it a bit bigger. Does not seem to be worth it though as it comes into play tapped. There is even a 1/1 Land Creature.

The Pain lands seem to be back in some weird and twisted form. For instance the Gruul variant. Generate 1 for free or generate G or R and let your opponents gain 1 life. Seems cool with Kavu Predator. Or the Azoreus variant: play 1 for free. Play U for free if you control a plains. Play W for free is you control an Island. This, I like.

As you can all read on the official site of Wizards, they made a Wish spell. Buffy and Charmed fans all know how dangerous that can be. Wish spells are always very tricky and most powerful. Even in Magic: The Gathering. I would suggest that you read the great article on the Wizard website itself for more explanation.

There is also a cycle of “creature shapers”. A 1/1 for G that can make Llanower Elves for 1 mana and a discarded card. The Black variant makes Festering Goblin. The one I am really interested in, is the red version though;

Sparkspitter – R
Creature – Elemental Spellshaper
R, T, Discard a card: Put a 3/1 red elemental creature token named Spark Elemental into play with “Trample, Haste. At the end of turn, sacrifice Spark Elemental.”
1/1

You guessed it: this is great with madness. Put a 3/1 trample, haste creature token into play and play that Fiery Temper for RR. But, for me, it becomes nearly broken when combined with the Primal Forcemage. I would gladly pay 1 mana and discard any other card to bring a 6/4 creature into play with Trample and Haste. And the best of it is that you can repeat this every single turn.

The following card is also pretty messed up with the Primal Forcemage:

Tarox Bladewing – 2RRR
Legendary creature – Dragon
Flying, Haste
Grandeur – discard another card named Tarox Bladewing: Tarox Bladewing gets +X/+X untill the end of turn, where X is its power
4/3

Put the Forcemage into position, play the Bladewing with a Seething Song on turn 3 and you will have a 7/6 flyer. Drop a Gianth Growth upon it for a 10/9 flyer and discard another Bladewing, attack for 20 damage. I know, this is a 6 card combo. But with probably Llanowar Elves and Birds in your deck on top of the Seething Songs, and with both Forcemages, Giant Growths and 4 copies of the Bladewing in your deck, it has all it takes to be a nasty badboy on turn 3 or 4.

Grandeur is a fine mechanic to get rid of extra copies of some Legend in your hand. Most of the Legends are good without much more. The Grandeur abilities make them THAT much better. They give your Legend that little extra what makes them special and cool. And, you get a certain Legend as promo card for the Pre-release, goodies!

All in all, I’d say, go to the pre-release weekend and enjoy it. I think that this set will be most fun of the three and will really “pop” your mind from time to time.
Last edited by The First on Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:06 pm; edited 1 time in totalGreat minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.
The First
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:44 pm
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
--- Reserved post --- (?)
Great minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:33 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
You making a report of the Pre-Release?!? I’m eager to see that! Very Happy Never saw a REALLY good report article here before! ALso, it might help my aticle on the set, too! Anyway, as I said, eager! Homage
I don't like YOU.
The First
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:43 pm
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
Well, I am going to try that. I’m not that good about remembering match-ups but I would like to go to the pre-release and write some comments about the play and feel of the new set.

I will also write down the cards I pulled and the deck I made with it (or will have made? Then...?). I reserved a post for that purpose anyway. So it does not get mingled with the article itself.
Great minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:01 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
Cool! For the record, your title needs a little work done. It’s just... weird. Something like "The Future is Now!" would be nicer (I’d been saving the title for my article, but decided to go with good ol’ "Braking Future Sight", to make it a series), I think. But it’s up to you. Just give it a little impact.
I don't like YOU.
The First
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:09 pm
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
Ok , I changed it. I do not really like to take ideas so I made one up myself. Maybe not that ground breaking... but still better than what it was before I guess. The title was first in the description. That is probably why it did not seem to fit.
Great minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 5:33 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
Yeah, looks better, although a lot of the newer players might not get the "Pop" thing. But as I do get it, nice! Very Happy
I don't like YOU.
mr.otto
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 6:00 pm
Joined: 26 Jan 2007 Posts: 31 Location:
Wow prerelease is coming up already. Next month should bring a couple of nice articles on this site.

Are they bringing back Poison Counters? I think I saw a sliver for G that gave all slivers Poisonous 1. Craziness.

I was wondering a couple things about your article The First. Is your vision for this to be about the STD metagame, a draft perspective, crazy deck ideas based upon the new cards?

Maybe some headings or cleaned up formating will help.

I did like when you pointed out the synergy of a couple of the new cards with cards already existing. To me that was what was most interesting. If you are on the fence about what to focus on, that’s my vote.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 10:35 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
He already answered that. He’s gonna write "The First" article on a Pre-Release report (sorry, couldn’t resist the joke Laughing )! Which cards did beeter than expected, which did worse, what he played, how his games went, probably what the winner played (assuming it’s not himself, of course), etc. Seems like a really cool article.
I don't like YOU.
The First
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 7:26 am
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
mr.otto wrote:

Are they bringing back Poison Counters? I think I saw a sliver for G that gave all slivers Poisonous 1. Craziness.


Yup, the Slivers get poison counters. A 1/1 Sliver for G that is giving all slivers Poisonous 1.

There is also an enchantment at a cost of 3B which provides Poisonous 3 to its bearer.

However, all this is still somehow unofficial. Only spoilers from God knows where... no REAL card images. The site I use to get info is right most of the time but the have the occasional "mishit".

Quote:

I was wondering a couple things about your article The First. Is your vision for this to be about the STD metagame, a draft perspective, crazy deck ideas based upon the new cards?


Well, all three actually. I want to give a first impression of the new set, starting with a pre-release tournament this saturday. But I can imagine this set becoming very popular in draft for instance. There are defenately some good themes for crazy deck ideas, like the Slivers that add poison counters. But there are also cards -well, only 1 that I know of- that add "contraptions" (again, only God knows at this moment...).

Mono green haste for instance will also get a boost if adding red thanks to the Spark Elemental creator (I think that he will be a very cool 1 drop for a lot of decks).

There are also decks that will get a serious boost thanks to Future Sight. How about the Wish spell for any Green White deck? Being able to fetch any multicolored card out of your library for GW when you need it.

Quote:

Maybe some headings or cleaned up formating will help.

I did like when you pointed out the synergy of a couple of the new cards with cards already existing. To me that was what was most interesting. If you are on the fence about what to focus on, that’s my vote.


Well, I hate headings for an article like this one. It should be a good read without anything solid behind it. It should show you the possibilities of the new set without forcing anyone into a certain direction. At the release of a new set, a lot of players invent a lot of new decks. I do not want to stand in the way of creativity just yet. It will get a bit more oriented after the pre-release with a tourny report and probably some ideas for standard. I do not know yet. That is all for next week probably, after the pre-release, when I can actually provide exact card texts.
Great minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.

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