Rumors

[Fellfrosch]

For those interested, here are some of the more interesting rumors about the upcoming Magic Block (ie, the next three sets).

The names are verified: Onslaught, Legions, and Scourge (in that order).

The Cycling mechanic will be back, with the same name and same effect.

The main new mechanic (which has been pretty firmly verified) is one called Morph, which lets you play a creature face down (as a token, basically) as a 2/2 for 3 mana. None of the rumors I've read mention color, so I'm assuming that the 2/2 creature is colorless. Then, at any time, you can pay the Morph cost for a facedown creature and flip it over; it then becomes a real creature. One example I've seen is the Blazing Firecat, which Morphs for two red mana into a 7/1 creature. I don't know for sure if you can play the creatures straight from your hand, or if you have to bring them out unmorphed and then morph them. Either way, it sounds like a very interesting mechanic.

The second new mechanic is one that has not been fully explained or confirmed. It's called Tribal, and has a coat-of-arms kind of effect (ie, Tribal creatures get bigger when similar creatures are in play). This is a lot like the old Plague Rats ability, which I always loved, so I'd like to see this rumor turn out to be true.

The final rumor is a weird one, but one I find to be extremely intriguing. You know how in Odyssey Block the colors were unbalanced from set to set? In Onslaught Block the colors will be even, but the spell types will be unbalanced: Legions allegedly contains nothing but creature spells, and Scourge will have no creatures at all. This, of course, is still an unproven rumor, but it's very interesting.

All in all, I'm think it sounds like an interesting environment. The cycling in particular will interact well with Threshhold and Odyssey Block. What are your thoughts?

[GuJiaXian]

Cycling was a fun, if somewhat boring, ability.  The tribal ability sounds interesting: a million other cards already have the ability; sounds like they've just finally given it a name.

[Fellfrosch]

Yeah, Tribal been around for a while in unnamed form. Kind of like when they started using Haste instead of "this creature is unaffected by summoning sickness."

[GuJiaXian]

Exactly.  I guess it tightens up rules clarifications and the length of text on the cards.  I'm glad they're bringing back some of the older mechanics...I'd personally like to see a new resurgance of Banding, myself.

[Fellfrosch]

Banding would be an interesting one to bring back--it disappeared because the designers didn't really like it, from what I understand, but I think a lot of that is because they didn't implement it well. I'd be interested to see what they could do with it.

[Lord_of_Me]

from what i hear it's going to be very creature heavy
especially legions, ....legions of creatures....

[Prometheus]

Banding was also fairly confusing, even for players who weren't new to the game. I've read some rules clairifications on it recently to be sure of what my one banding card does, but I really don't think we'll be seeing that one again. Phasing was the same way. It seems to be used in totally different ways on different cards...I'm not sure the designers understood how it worked.

The new Morph mechanic will be an interesting change to the game...all the creatures with reusable 2 point direct damage that's applicable to creatures will suddenly be a lot more attractive. If you can kill a Morphing creature before the Morph spell actually resolves, I would assume the whole thing fails. I'd expect to see at least one Chainflinger-like creature coming along soon from red. Tribal is a good one to focus on I think. Creature-typed decks are a little underpowered at present it seems.

[Fellfrosch]

According to the rumors, morphing a face-down creature is not a timed ability--ie, it doesn't go onto the stack. It happens instantly, like tapping a land for mana.

[Fellfrosch]

Okay, the initial rumor I heard about Tribal was incorrect. It turns out it's not an actual mechanic, but more like the Invasion-block Domain powers--ie, a type of ability rather than a named mechanic. Whereas the Domain spells grew more powerful when you had multiple land types in play, the Tribal spells grow more powerful when you have several creatures of a given type. The only example I remember off the top of my head is a red instant that costs one red mana, and then produces one red mana for each goblin you have in play.

Most of this news, by the way, I'm picking up from www.mtgnews.com, so you can look at some of the cards for yourself.

[Prometheus]

Either way, the tribal mechanic will give more clout to creature-type themed decks, which I think is a very good thing.

[Fellfrosch]

Agreed. I look forward to seeing more creature theme decks, mainly because I'm always tempted to build them myself.

[Prometheus]

Yeah I'm still working on my angel/dragon deck...it has a few other creature types as backup, but every creature type in the deck is focused so far. Maybe this tribal stuff will come off nicely for me.

[Fellfrosch]

You can find the full Onslaught spoiler here: http://216.127.88.11/tracing/on/

There's some pretty amazing cards there. Check out the Supreme Inquisitor.

[Lord_of_Me]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/30

Is this a joke?

[Fellfrosch]

I don't imagine they have April Fools' Day in England, so I'll give you a helpful hint: anything dated April first can be reasonably assumed to be false. It's kind of a thing we do here.