Might return after years away

[AdmundfortGeographer]

So are people actually expected to pay 15 mana to get a beastie into play? What about time-tested concepts such as mana curve? What am I supposed to do in the early turns? Just play land and say go?

I can see use for them as a stalemate-breaker. If by turn15-20, victory is still far from certain, forcing a legend into play can easily turn the tide in your favour.

There are ways to get them out earlier. One of the decks has methods of spawning 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn, particularly one card that spits one out every round it is on the battlefield. You can sacrifice Eldrazi Spawn for 1 colorless mana. Good for any X damage spell or massive casting cost creature. My son used those Eldrazi Spawn to get out some big creatures. I promptly dropped Narcolepsy on them.

 

[Asmor]

So are people actually expected to pay 15 mana to get a beastie into play? What about time-tested concepts such as mana curve? What am I supposed to do in the early turns? Just play land and say go?

I can see use for them as a stalemate-breaker. If by turn15-20, victory is still far from certain, forcing a legend into play can easily turn the tide in your favour. But to make one the cornerstone of your deck strategy??? Most of the time, they seem like they will just sit impotently in your deck or hand.

Not so much...

Here's an example that happened to me in the prerelease.

Turn 1: Land, go (it was 5 AM and I messed up, I should have played my Joraga Treespeaker, but forgot)
Turn 2: Land, Joraga Treespeaker
Turn 3: Land, Level up Treespeaker (it can not tap for GG)
Turn 4: Land, Ondu Giant (4-mana 2/4 that searches for a land and puts it into play tapped)
Turn 5: Land. Tap my 6 lands plus treespeaker for 8 mana, Ulamog's Crusher.
Turn 6: Land. 9 mana for a Gelatinous Genesis to put 4 4/4 oozes into play

I also had several games where I got out a turn 4 Sphinx of Magosi (3UUU, 6/6, flying, 2U: Draw a card and put a +1/+1 counter on it).

I don't think I ever got 15 mana during the 6 rounds of the prerelease (around 15 games total), but I was also really starved for some of the better mana accelerators. In particular, I had only a single playable spell that produced Eldrazi Spawn.

Eldrazi Spawn are 0/1 tokens which are produced by a number of different spells (a couple just produce them, a number of creatures make them when the creature comes into play, there's an enchantment that creates them every turn, and then things like direct damage + a spawn, search for a land and get a spawn, etc). The spawn can be sacrificed for 1 mana, allowing you to store up mana.

So yes, a 15 mana megabomb like Emrakul is definitely playable in limited if you have the cards to support it. It is also definitely playable in casual constructed, though only time will tell how effective the eldrazi are in more competitive constructed environments.

It should also be noted that Emrakul (the 15 mana eldrazi) is a mythic rare, and thus very, very uncommon. The highest-cost rare is 12 mana (It That Betrays), uncommon is 11 (Pathrazer of Ulamog), and "castable" common is 8 (there's a common eldrazi that costs 9, but it's actually one of the weaker eldrazi; it has the ability that rather than paying its cost, you can sacrifice 4 eldrazi spawn; if you can't reliably do that, it's really not playable because it's just too weak to justify the cost)

 

[Dire Bare]

So are people actually expected to pay 15 mana to get a beastie into play? What about time-tested concepts such as mana curve? What am I supposed to do in the early turns? Just play land and say go?

I can see use for them as a stalemate-breaker. If by turn15-20, victory is still far from certain, forcing a legend into play can easily turn the tide in your favour. But to make one the cornerstone of your deck strategy??? Most of the time, they seem like they will just sit impotently in your deck or hand.

Don't be so unhappy! You assume that "big monsters" is the only thing the new set has going for it. Give the Magic design team a little more credit, they've been doing this for a while now.

I haven't purchased any "Rise of the Eldrazi" myself yet, but I've been paying attention to most of the previews on WotC's site. The "Eldrazi" (think elder evils, like Cthulu) are colorless creatures that have a two pronged approach. There are the "minion" Eldrazi that are more "normal" sized creatures, even some weenie tokens, that are designed to keep you alive long enough to bring out your big guns. The big bad major Eldrazi are super-big and super-expensive, but are colorless (so you don't have to worry about having the "right" combo of lands) and many of the minion creatuers can be sacrificed to make casting an Eldrazi cheaper.

So, if you are playing an Eldrazi deck, you want to hold off your opponent with your minions until you have the juice to bring in a world-destroyer.

If you are playing against an Eldrazi deck, you want to hit them fast and hard before they can bring out Godzilla!

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The "Eldrazi" (think elder evils, like Cthulu)

To me they feel like a synthesis of Xendrik giants from Eberron with Cthulhu Mythos.

I know folks have been curious at Lovecraft's influence on D&D, but I'd be interested if anyone has bothered to itemize Cthulhiana-like elements in the Magic game over the years. Hmm, maybe that should be forked off to another thread. *shrug*

 

[MerricB]

So are people actually expected to pay 15 mana to get a beastie into play? What about time-tested concepts such as mana curve? What am I supposed to do in the early turns? Just play land and say go?

I can see use for them as a stalemate-breaker. If by turn15-20, victory is still far from certain, forcing a legend into play can easily turn the tide in your favour. But to make one the cornerstone of your deck strategy??? Most of the time, they seem like they will just sit impotently in your deck or hand.

I got to play in two drafts and one sealed deck tournament on the weekend, and Rise of the Eldrazi is definitely one of the most fun sets I've played with (and I've played with a lot over the years).

Did I get to play these Eldrazi monstrosities? Absolutely I did. There are a couple of secrets. First is that there are a bunch of defensive tricks in the set: walls, enchantments, spells and creatures that make it harder to attack. When you have spells that destroy or tap low-power creatures, the weenie rush tends to hit a roadblock.

But the main trick was gaining Eldrazi Spawn tokens. There were a lot of effects that create them, mostly in green and red, although there were other sources of them. I drafted a deck with three copies Growth Spasm, which is a 2G sorcery that allowed me to search for and play a basic land card into play, and also put a 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn token. The spawn all have the ability "Sacrifice this creature: add 1 to your mana pool." So, it'd give me one mana and one temporary mana.

However, the most scary spawn generator I had was a Rapacious One: 5/4 Trample, when it deals damage to a player, gain that many spawn tokens. Added two Snake Umbras to it (+1/+1, draw a card when it damages an opponent, if you would destroy the enchanted creature, destroy this enchantment instead)... and went to town. Getting one of my two Eldrazi into play? Not that hard.

I saw a lot of different decks during the events: wall decks, eldrazi spawn decks, white/blue swarm decks, leveller decks, removal decks... This set is just a lot of fun to play.

Cheers!

 

[Asmor]

To me they feel like a synthesis of Xendrik giants from Eberron with Cthulhu Mythos.

I know folks have been curious at Lovecraft's influence on D&D, but I'd be interested if anyone has bothered to itemize Cthulhiana-like elements in the Magic game over the years. Hmm, maybe that should be forked off to another thread. *shrug*

Pretty much just the Eldrazi. This is the first time in Magic history, as far as I can recall, where we've seen anything that was from "beyond the pale," so to speak. Until the Eldrazi, planeswalkers have been the only "otherworldly power," and even they were each born as mortals. All the "gods" in Magic are either myths, planeswalkers, or, in Zendikar, based on the Eldrazi.

The only other thing that comes close is Yawgmoth/Phyrexia, but Yawgmoth wasn't even a planeswalker. Basically he was just a mortal who took control of an existing artificial plane (Phyrexia).

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I got to play in two drafts and one sealed deck tournament on the weekend, and Rise of the Eldrazi is definitely one of the most fun sets I've played with (and I've played with a lot over the years).

. . .

I saw a lot of different decks during the events: wall decks, eldrazi spawn decks, white/blue swarm decks, leveller decks, removal decks... This set is just a lot of fun to play.

I'm glad I wasn't having nostalgia goggles, because I'm having a blast playing each of the Intro decks. My son has asked me to play some Magic every evening so far, he's enjoying it too. Lucky chance, I guess, I picked now to try it out again.

Resisting the urge to "just get more" so far very successful . . . remodeling an entire floor of your house is a remarkable method at keeping your finances tight!

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Pretty much just the Eldrazi. This is the first time in Magic history, as far as I can recall, where we've seen anything that was from "beyond the pale," so to speak.

Almost inspires me to read up more on the mythos and cosmology of the Magic-verse. Is there a fansite that tracks and compiles that kind of stuff well?

 

[Asmor]

There's a wiki for it on Wikia, though it doesn't seem that hot...

There's a lot of info about Magic on Wikipedia, though. Here's a good hub: Magic: The Gathering storylines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[RangerWickett]

I think for a long time Phyrexia filled Magic's "elder horrors" place. It was a realm on 'unnatural' things, though in this case the unnatural was biomechanical, since 'natural' in Magic means, well, magical.

Then the whole Invasion block put a face on Phyrexia and made them not scary anymore.