It’s not a triland, though, is it? This land itself can only ever produce green mana.

I’m kind of underwhelmed by this cycle of rare lands, but also kind of glad about that because it means I won’t have to worry about collecting them all.

I thought it was strange to have a (qualified) Vedalken Orrery effect at uncommon, but then I checked and it’s not as unusual as I thought. But this is probably one of the most expansive and playable cards on that list.

This and anything with Mobilize 3 or greater should combo well with Vito, Fanatic of Aclazotz.

Thanks to Domain and all of the creature-lands, we’re at a point where I welcome the return of some amount of land destruction to Standard.

Combos with Marketback Walker to draw a card and make a zombie for free. Also combos with Innocuous Rat or Infernal Vessel to make two creatures for B. Add Gixian Puppeteer to that deck for additional shenanigans.

Zombie Druid? Would it have killed them to let us use our 2/2 Zombie tokens from previous sets? The rest of this cycle makes tokens with a single creature type; why the one exception?

Another spell that triggers Up the Beanstalk for less than five mana, but this is probably too situational to replace Ride’s End in Standard Overlords decks.

This is clearly better than Cruel Edict and likely even a better choice than Chainer’s Edict for a lot of decks/metagames.

I think “Harmonize” is a fine name for both the card and the mechanic but it’s weird that there’s really no similarity between the two. Maybe some yet-to-be-spoiled card will combine the mechanic and the draw effect.

As for this card… doesn’t seven mana seem like a lot for the Harmonize cost? The cost on Roamer’s Routine seems a lot more reasonable. I feel like they were worried this one would be broken and costed it very conservatively. But it’s probably a medium-high pick in draft even so; I mean, removal is removal.

You’re preaching to the choir when it comes to power creep. But I do think this mechanic fits better in blue than black.

Cf. Paralyze.

This would have been great in the Dimir control deck I played in the Standard Pauper MWM a couple of weeks ago.

I wonder if this would be an upgrade over Archangel Elspeth in my Boros Caretaker’s Talent control deck. It costs one mana more and you lose out on the lifelink, which is sometimes relevant against aggro. But aside from that, I’d probably rather have this new card on the battlefield in most situations. Think of the combos with Urabrask’s Forge…

The art is undeniably cool, but if you’re a purist, these are arguably even less land-like than the THB full-arts.

One of my dream projects that I will never find time for is to make an “Am I Hot Or Not” for Magic lands except you’re voting on whether the art actually depicts the thing in the card name. Islands are the worst offenders – rivers or fountains or pretty much anything with water seems to qualify.

You might be right. Be interesting to see what they decide. I don’t have a dog in the fight – I don’t play Modern and don’t have any affection for either card.

But if they ban Breach in the next announcement and then still have to re-ban Opal in the following one, I predict Breach will become the new Splinter Twin, in that the community will see it as having died for another card’s sins, and call for its reinstatement.

Six copies in the top 8 – that’s one more than Nadu did, if I’m not mistaken.

If something gets banned, my guess would be Opal. If Breach is banned then Opal can go on to enable any number of other broken decks, but the reverse isn’t as true.

Having to re-ban Opal just a few months after un-banning it will be an embarrassment, but I’d wager they’ll still do it.

I adapted my old Roaming Throne Merfolk deck for this week’s MWM and it’s been doing well. And it’s helping me make progress on the achievement for playing 250 Merfolk or Sphinxes.

About
Name Alchemy Merfolk

Deck
8 Forest
4 Island
4 Willowrush Verge
4 Botanical Sanctum
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Cenote Scout
4 Merfolk Tunnel-Guide
4 Nicanzil, Current Conductor
4 Merfolk Cave-Diver
4 Roaming Throne
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
2 Jadelight Spelunker
4 Glowcap Lantern
2 Herald’s Reveille
3 Into the Flood Maw
4 Overprotect

The most common way you’re looking to win is attacking with an equipped Cave-Diver. Roaming Throne is essential but the other rares are not, so substitute them as needed. Merfolk Tunnel-Guide and Nicanzil make a pretty fun team; it’s almost making me want to play more Alchemy.

The first-land-enters-tapped rule does not seem to have much of an impact on how games play out, and I didn’t take it into consideration during deckbuilding. Guess it might make it less painful to run lands that were going to enter tapped anyway.

A common archetype theme gets an ability word

I would like to see “blink” get keyworded – it would save a lot of text and be good flavor to boot – but this teaser says “ability word” and that’s not the same thing.

Your list worked well, thanks again for the suggestion. I switched out Banishing Light for Seal from Existence, which I think is an upgrade given the all-Plains manabase. But the best games, like you said, are the ones where you just go Outfitter into Hammer and maybe never even get to three mana. I also tried out Mandibular Kite in place of Barbed Spike, which is more of a lateral move – it’s cheaper, but it only contributes +1 to All That Glitters, and the token dies if you move the equipment. I did make the interesting discovery that if you equip a Hammer first and Kite second, the creature can fly again.

I eventually got this achievement. I’m still not 100% sure what the problem was but I think it might be that even though the wording of the achievement says “matches”, which to me specifically means Bo3, you can acually only get it while playing Bo1 games.