But it is generally better than Essence Flux. Trading in the occasional +1/+1 counter for the ability to protect your walkers.

Idk Negate is still better. Stop hoping for good counter-spells, they're not gonna happen anytime soon.

Not sure I understand the question. It's 2 targets until your next turn, which is, for example, 8 cards if they have vigilance and double strike and they both attack on your turn and block on the opponent's...

chiang is probably right for once. Wizards' QnA tumblr talked about how they shift around the colour pie to re-balance things and blue had a long run of good control so now it's on a bit of a break and pushed in other areas for a bit.
Though that doesn't mean we can't hope for more and better counters, especially if they can fit them in the starter boxes.

They probably have to lean more towards red and blue for Kaladesh anyway since it's thopter land and thopters are izzet.

Yeah, I think this set should be mostly boosting black right? (Although right now it looks like WG are the big winners). For one thing liliana is still to come, and fwiw that emerge creature in black is ridiculously good for duels - I think we'll get it too.

I mean this:



Just looks like a ridiculously good card to me. I'll see what I think after trying it, but if it's as good as I think, it's a winning card all on its own.

? I think.

Black/Colorless currently sucks (I tried it) and it's going to take a lot more than that to fix it.. but that's certainly a nice piece. Probably gotta splash green or white since you almost have to tap into those two colors to get your power level up high enough to compete.. with Izzet being the only color combo I can think of that can do without. Still.. that's evaluating using the current pool.. there's more cards to come, then we'll see what we get.

Once Origins rotates out.. Duels really will be it's own special format. I'm enjoying the ride.

This and murder will help, plus new lili. But yeah, black's been pretty questionable since the beginning. I'm hoping stuff that hasn't been spoiled so far, will be very good.

If it doesn't have legs, I'll try GB next, and it WILL be good. But I'm hoping to do BC instead.

More like in my opinion, but T3 Deadbridge Shaman into this would be good. I hope more discard type spells get revealed.

The only good mono black deck is zombies without colorless.... But it's still a great dual-color.

I'd be interested to see what you've come up with.

Well, it's not Tier 1, but I wouldn't be scared to actually use it in verses then again... with how common declaration in stone is right now...

YES PLEASE. Cast on opponents end turn so you can boardwhipe and get something back on the battlefield with a + counter?

Definitely a strong card for white since they've got planar outburst

Theoretically 8 cards are possible if you target two creatures that both have Vigilance and Double Strike (though your opponent likely won't attack into these activated blockers)

"Until your next turn, whenever this creature deals combat damage, draw a card".

This means you'll draw a card
-when this creature attacks and its damage is not prevented or its power is not 0
-when this creature blocks and its damage is not prevented or its power is not 0
-after First strike damage, if the creature has First Strike

okay so for the purposes of this hypothetical lets say you have Tamiyo, Always Watching and 2 creatures, doesn't really matter what, when you attack you draw 2, then on their turn if your cards didn't die and they attack into you, you draw off of blocking their creatures

thanks, that's what i was thinking (except i didn't think of double strike) but it sounded too busted. I thought it would be like those effects that if one or the other deals damage it's one trigger, and if they both do it's still one trigger. Still though, straight out draw 2 (or more) cards for a + ability is ridiculously good who cares what her other abilities are, just +1 all day. to the people thinking you don't need the ult by turn 8-10+, if you've been using that +1 you very well might still have a full hand! not niche at all

Too janky to be likely, but Gideon, Battle-Forged and the new Grisly Anglerfish both have Siren's Call-type abilities. Don't ask me how you get double-strike on top of all that.

Now stop me if I'm wrong here, because this is pushing my knowledge of the timing rules, but I believe the stack order will make that Deadbridge Shaman idea not quite as potent as everyone thinks.

I believe it's this: You announce casting with the Emerge ability, pay all costs, put the spell on the stack. That generates the "When you cast" as part of it. The triggered effect from paying the cost with the Shaman doesn't get onto the stack until after that because it doesn't hit a game state outside the casting action until after the whole cast and its related stuff is done.

In short, the Shaman will resolve first. The side-effect of paying the cost happens before you get back to the "when you cast" effect.

All that means that when this starts out they need to be holding two cards of each cost. If they've only got one 4+ nonland card in hand, they pitch that to the Shaman (assuming they're reading the card on the stack and are not a fool), and the Mindbender only hits one card of 3- cost.

Yes, sometimes the combo would get three cards, but I doubt that will happen often enough to make it worth stacking Shamans over some other creature.

Anyways, as I said, not 100% sure on the stack timing. This is an odd complex case.

The stack is always "last in, first out" - effectively, the spell with the sac effect goes onto the stack 1st, so it will resolve last. New triggers from casting the spell go onto the stack after it (in a normal game of Magic, you could order the triggers if they occur at the same time, but Duels doesn't have that functionality). So yes, the Deadbridge Shaman will trigger first, decreasing the likelihood of getting 3 discards due to the scenario you've outlined.

I don't know if this is the real Lili or not yet, but if it is, it's really rather situational...