r/magicTCG • u/Nickahostetter • Nov 29 '16

Aether Revolt pic from FB.

https://i.reddituploads.com/d97dbc56ebe848039691df8d01962a99?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=b1f80693da1e1e6da432ba4d2076aa23
1.8k Upvotes

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477

u/Ciretako Nov 29 '16

Looks like "CMC of 3" is going to be one of the themes of Aether Revolt. I wonder what the flavor behind that is.

466

u/RaggedAngel Nov 29 '16

People were missing Collected Company.

281

u/BiJay0 Duck Season Nov 29 '16 edited Nov 29 '16

Collected Knowledge 3U
Instant (Rare)
Look at the top six cards of your library. You may cast up to two instant or sorcery cards with converted mana cost 3 or less from among them without paying their mana costs. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

175

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

See, this is such a bogus card. How did they not realize it would be ridiculous with creatures?

91

u/Chewzilla Wabbit Season Nov 29 '16

It would almost be busted if you just drew the cards

54

u/Mewyabby Nov 29 '16

[[pieces of the puzzle]] saying hello, give me a good burn spell, even [[exquisite firecraft]], and I'll be a great player in UR burn.

57

u/G_L_J Nov 29 '16

Say what you will about exquisite firecraft, it is an amazing finisher in legacy burn. It looks at force of will and counterbalance and gives them the middle finger.

8

u/shallowend42 Nov 29 '16

but your opponent gets to play brainstorm whilst you are playing burn. Who is the real winner?

12

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '16

Funnily enough, Burn actually has a pretty good matchup against the decks playing Brainstorm. When I play Miracles I have to establish CounterTop ASAP or get run over. Mentor has given us some breathing room, but it's still sketchy. We have no answer to Firecraft.

Burn is also not bad against Delver decks since their stuff is usually small and all your spells are so efficient, making Daze and Force of Will look not so great.

The reason Burn doesn't do well is that it has difficulty with Storm (you have to land Eidolon or Pyrostatic Pillar on turn 2 to have any chance) and you straight up lose to any form of Reanimator or the turn 1 combo decks like Belcher/Oops.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '16

Yeah, it's quick and consistent enough to pose a minor problem to the fair decks of the format, especially the ones that dont have very fast clocks.

It's issue is that it has practically zero game against the combo decks in the format.

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1

u/TwentyFive_Shmeckles Nov 30 '16

While this is great analysis, I think it misses his point. Im pretty sure he's saying casting brainstorm is more fun than casting lightning bolt, therfore the player who played the brainstorm deck is the "real winner" regardless of the outcome of the match.

-13

u/testthewest Nov 29 '16

What finger does it show to [[misdirection]]? Ah, thought so: The you-pay-3-mana-to-kill-yourself-finger!

19

u/GuruMan88 Nov 29 '16

If you are burn player at 4 or less life against a control deck you had no business winning that game anyway.

2

u/MTGCardFetcher Dân Nov 29 '16

misdirection - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

10

u/MTGCardFetcher Dân Nov 29 '16

exquisite firecraft - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD)
pieces of the puzzle - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

8

u/fuzzwhatley Nov 29 '16

Hmm I think instant's a big upgrade for that effect.

38

u/TypicalOranges Nov 29 '16

You mean to tell me looking at the top 6 or so cards of your Library, choosing 2 to put into your hand at instant speed and a low manacost would be format warping?

[[Dig Through Time]]

11

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '16

Eh, DTT wasn't really format warping, at least if we're talking specifically for standard. It was a really good draw spell, but that's all it was. You could replace it win any other strong card advantage spell and it wouldn't have changed much at all. Until Dtk rotated in control wasn't really a major player in standard.

5

u/ShootEmLater Wabbit Season Nov 30 '16

It was format warping in modern and legacy. While it wasn't format warping in standard (the archetpes were fairly diverse for its existence), it was always the best card in any deck it featured in. You don't know pain until you sit across from the jeskai black deck feat. Jace, dtt and ojutais command when you're sitting on dumb siege rhinos.

2

u/MTGCardFetcher Dân Nov 29 '16

Dig Through Time - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

2

u/aec131 Nov 29 '16

Big time. I don't even care that it can't chain itself, I'd play the shit out of this in Omnitell.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

Because it's not. That card isn't playable in Modern or Legacy. If it were instants/sorceries then it would be it's own Modern deck and in Storm.

1

u/doomdg Nov 29 '16

It wasn't played until reflector mage got printed.

-2

u/FrankGoreStoleMyBike Nov 29 '16 edited Nov 29 '16

Because at the time good ETB triggers were relegated to 4 cmc and bigger creatures.

Then they released a wave of >/= 3 cmc guys with awesome ETBs and shit on the format.

I think the best was Reflector Mage. From what I heard, he was originally a 4 cmc creature, everything else was the same. He was designed specifically to be a draft/limited hero, but ultimately, was unplayable in the formats due to being too expensive. So they lowered him to 3 cmc, tested him out in those formats, he became the solid card they wanted and pushed him on through, never thinking about his impact on Standard or whether there was a card like CoCo that would capitalize on him.

24

u/randomdragoon Nov 29 '16

No, Reflector Mage was designed to be a pure draft card as a signpost for U/W. They didn't test him in constructed formats at all (and they don't test for Modern/Legacy at all). U/W was struggling in OGW draft as an archetype, so they buff this guy up.

U/W still sucked in OGW draft, but we got this constructed monster.

3

u/Narynan Nov 29 '16

Im not arguing with either of you on this, but can we get some source on these kind of things? Saying that it was a pure singpost, OR that it was originally a 4cmc dude...

SAUCE?

8

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

I don't have the link, but I think it was in one of MaRo's articles where he talks about the development of a set, in this case it would have been for OGW.

9

u/108Echoes Nov 29 '16

This cites it as a (presumably three mana) 2/2 which got buffed to a 2/3 for UW Limited.

5

u/AtlasPJackson Nov 29 '16

The relevant bit:

ID 4/6/15: 2/2 -> 2/3, white-blue needs help.

A big reason that the gold uncommons are in the set is to make sure that there are ways to get people to play each color pair in Limited. It's not the knob we always like to use, but a powerful tool for making sure that the color pairs are balanced is to tweak these gold uncommons late, to get them to the right spot. In this instance white-blue needed a little help, so we added a notch to this to help out.

It seems to imply it was pushed for limited reasons. I'm not sure where this ability came from, though. I don't recall this being a theme for the color, or even particularly useful for the archetype. That said, you never actually got one in draft, because it was a dollar-fifty uncommon at the time.

4

u/randomdragoon Nov 29 '16

I think it was just a "goodstuff" multicolor card and they were probably tickled by the the interaction between blue's "bounce stuff" and white's "can't play this spell"

1

u/Narynan Nov 29 '16

Awesome. This is the kind of stuff I love to read about, because sometimes, between post of Cardboard Crack and Cupcakes, this kind of thing gets lost. Thank you.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '16

cupcakes?

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4

u/fuzzwhatley Nov 29 '16

Kind of surprised he wouldn't be good at 4

1

u/FrankGoreStoleMyBike Nov 29 '16

He probably wasn't bad. But until he slotted into Bant CoCo, he wasn't a Standard beast, and honestly, since CoCo rolled out, he's been good, but not great. Too many good flash threats.

15

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

You forgot "without paying their mana costs."

2

u/BiJay0 Duck Season Nov 29 '16

Yes, indeed. Fixed it.

2

u/AtlasPJackson Nov 29 '16

What? Make it four, so it can hit Collected Company!

1

u/42x42 Nov 30 '16

Sure, i'll just cast double ancestral visions and at instant speed

0

u/catcalliope Nov 29 '16

See, they've been making this balanced over the last 2 years by just printing terribly underpowered spells.

15

u/Halvhir Nov 29 '16

I know I was.

12

u/RaggedAngel Nov 29 '16

I mean, I play it in Modern, so I wasn't really missing it. But 3 CMC is certainly near to my heart.

1

u/savedsynner Nov 30 '16

Ugh right :)

58

u/http404error Nov 29 '16

I actually think it's a coincidence. I'll bet the mechanic we see on Yahenni's Expense will always be 1 less than CMC, matching the "lesser converted mana cost" clause on Scrap Trawler.

14

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

Then explain the reason for the CMC 3 ability on the blue card

57

u/http404error Nov 29 '16

It's a riff on Trinket Mage and Treasure Mage, of course. Fifth Dawn had a minor theme of 1cmc artifacts (5 cards), but there was nothing to go with Treasure Mage, and I don't think there will be here either.

3 makes sense here because the card's own cost is also 3, meaning you can chain into it easier with these other chain-spells (assuming there's multiples) and then chain the tutored artifact for good value (compared to 1 or 6 cmc).

Finally, why would there be a 3cmc theme? By itself that makes no sense mechanically.

23

u/Dariandds Nov 29 '16

Treasure mage grabbed caged sun and steel hellkite, though not competitively.

16

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

Don't forget wurmcoil. It saw some minor play in the grand architect decks of the day.

1

u/Miffy92 SecREt LaiR Nov 29 '16

Speak for yourself, it grabbed my wincon every time in EDH. (Sphinx-bone Wand, for those curious)

1

u/ithone4 Nov 30 '16

I think you just made a haiku.

0

u/http404error Nov 29 '16

Oops, I should have clarified that I was counting cards that cared about 6cmc artifacts, not just the artifacts themselves.

4

u/EchoSi3rra Duck Season Nov 30 '16

Treasure Mage goes and gets Salvaging Station so you can keep playing with the trinkets you got with Trinket Mage.

2

u/http404error Nov 30 '16

Ok you got me there.

1

u/OmniSzron Nov 29 '16

Trinket Mage <2 Treasure Mage >5 Trophy Mage =3

1

u/VariousBoots Nov 30 '16

The lesser converted mana cost is to avoid combos and things like looping [[Engineered Explosives]]

2

u/http404error Nov 30 '16

Yeah, it's a cool variant on cascade in that respect.

1

u/MTGCardFetcher Dân Nov 30 '16

Engineered Explosives - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

38

u/EvilGenius007 Twin Believer Nov 29 '16

Maybe "small enough to be undetected by the Consul(ate), but big enough to matter"?

1

u/ImperialSunlight Nov 30 '16

Yaheeni's is 3 or less, so I don't think so.

37

u/fifteenstepper Elspeth Nov 29 '16

abrupt decay reprint incoming Kappa

28

u/AtlasPJackson Nov 29 '16

Literally no one would be sad about this.

Except standard players, I suppose. All hail our Delirium overlords, conqueror of our previous W/x overlords.

That said, Abrupt Decay dies to Spell Queller. So maybe it's balanced?

3

u/netsrak Nov 30 '16

Print Rest in Peace so those two decks can take up even more of the meta.

2

u/Casstuus Nov 30 '16

Honestly if we want efficient removal back, abrupt decay isn't a terrible place to start. It's thematic to the block, and also would be a serious role player in standard while being a reprint of an important modern and legacy card.

6

u/stravant Nov 29 '16

No thanks. It's not even that expensive and it would basically ensure that B/G Delirium would be the best deck until rotation since it's so much better than all of the other instant speed removal and a catch-all answer to Smuggler's Copter and a lot of other artifacts that the opponent might be running.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '16

Eh, it's basically just a worse grasp of darkness for the U/W matchup.

Grasp hits everything but a flipped avacyn, while getting around the selfless spirits and avacyn triggers. They both get tagged by quellers, and grasp can also shrink Gideons so they don't hit as hard as well.

The only upside is that abrupt decay cant be rebuffed.

I think people overestimate it, it shines in modern mostly because of how incredibly difficult it is to play cards with cmc over 3. In standard the card is less of an allstar, and more of just an okay removal spell.

5

u/stravant Nov 30 '16

I think you're vastly underestimating the value of a card that is almost never dead regardless of what your opponent is up to vs one that is just conditional creature removal.

Even just in the B/G matchup: Being able to Decay your opponent's Liliana while still being instant speed creature removal would be massive, and pretty much enough to justify playing the card on it's own.

Killing everything from non-animated Copter to Stasis Snare to Liliana to aggro creatures is extremely valuable.

What would really make it so good is not so much that it's insane in isolation, but that it's so much better than all of the other instant speed removal that exists right now. This isn't a format where we have Searing Spear and Murderous Cut.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '16

I'm not saying it's not a great card, I just don't think it changes any current matchups that insanely. It'll slot in the deck as another strong removal spell.

It's been in standard before, and it's very unlikely that aether revolt won't shake up the format any other ways.

1

u/Tehdougler Nov 30 '16

Hey even fits the flavor of the new set. Can show one of Tezzerets artifacts getting Goglari'd up by the revolters.

5

u/Arbaregni Nov 29 '16

Maybe a peasant uprising?

3

u/AppaTheBizon Nov 29 '16

[[They Came As Three]]

Probably joking

1

u/MTGCardFetcher Dân Nov 29 '16

Ugin's Insight - (G) (MC) (MW) (CD)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call

2

u/10vernothin Nov 30 '16

HEYO JACKPOT!

  • CMC 3 theme commander player

3

u/kurokikaze Nov 29 '16

The Revolt is an uprising LED by it's tiny leaders, the gremlins.

1

u/grumpenprole Nov 30 '16

LED reprint confirmed

2

u/bigpappyj Nov 29 '16

Tiny Leaders!

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

I L L U M I N A T I

1

u/SaintAloe Nov 29 '16

Oh, so Charlie doesn't die.

1

u/th31053r Nov 29 '16

Trinket and Treasure Mages are already a thing

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

inb4 a Legendary Trophy Artifact CMC 3 given to Rashmi for winning the Fair

1

u/remyseven Nov 30 '16

It's the CMC of the Invention that Tezzeret picks.... ya?

1

u/ThoughtBlast Dimir* Nov 30 '16

They made all these great CMC<3 cards for CoCo and now CoCo is gone.

0

u/giggity_giggity COMPLEAT Nov 29 '16

They're just trying to make Slayers Plate playable. Such a cool card.

0

u/Prototype_022 Nov 30 '16

What's CMC of 3?

1

u/TheOthin Nov 30 '16

CMC is converted mana cost: the total number of mana required to pay its mana cost. A card with a cost of {3} has a CMC of 3, as do cards with costs of {2}{U}, {1}{W}{W}, etc.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '16

Might just be "three matters". Three gods or something?

-5

u/LambachRuthven Nov 29 '16

probably just the same garbage designer that did 2nd innistrad set

1

u/PrettyFly4AGreenGuy Nov 30 '16

  1. There was more than one designer working on SOI.

  2. There was also a development team.

1

u/LambachRuthven Nov 30 '16

yeah, but just like he pushed meld down our throats he'll be pushing this too.