#tiny golems helping them charting starts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morporkian-cryptid · 3 years

Note

Hi! I've started looking for Discworld books to read, because I've been seeing it a lot on my dash lately. Unfortunately, I have no idea of where to start or if I can just pick up the first one I find (there's so many). I need help pls 🥺

Hello my friend, you have knocked on the right door!

I usually advise against reading them in chronological order, because the first ones are not representative of the rest of the series. That said, I'd also advise against reading them in complete disorder, like I did. Hence the charts.

Be Not Afraid, it may look like a huge mess, but it actually makes sense with some explanation.

The Discworld Series is a set of (relatively) stand-alone books, assembled into several sub-series. Unfortunately, all books of one sub-series were not written in one go, so you can get one Wizards book, then a few different ones before you find the next Wizards book.

You can read the sub-series in whatever order you like, but you should generally read the books within one sub-series in order, or you're going to miss out on backstories, references and world building. For instance, you can read the Death sub-series first, or the Watch sub-series first, or mix them up; but you shouldn't read Feet of Clay (3rd book of the Watch) before Guards! Guards! (1st book of the Watch).

Each color corresponds to a sub-series, the ones with a white outline are the starting point in their respective sub-series so they're the ones I'd recommend you start with. If you want to read one specific sub-series in its entirety, pick a color and follow the line!

Circles with a black center are short stories, bonus work, etc, I say just ignore them until you're done reading everything and you're starving for content.

Short(ish) summary of each sub-series under the cut!

Wizards: A bunch of mad academics tinkering with the fabric of the universe, and blowing things up in the process. Most of these novels follow the accidental travels of the worst Wizzard of them all, Rincewind, who's so shitty he can't even remember one spell, but has the greatest luck on the Disc (or the worst, in his opinion). These will take you around the world to discover the Disc's equivalent of China, Australia, Mount Olympus...

Witches: The Wizards' cousins who inherited all the brain cells. The core three are a very strict expert in headology, a cheery old lady with a horde of grandchildren and a filthy sense of humor, and the young and impressible herbs enthusiast. These stories usually revolve around how they save their little mountain village from the day's supernatural occurrence, in a parody of a specific genre (theater, fairy tales...)

Tiffany Aching: A specific witch who gets her own sub-series. She's an angry teenage shepherd and is helped by tiny blue scotsmen.

Death: A great big skeleton tasked with collecting recently deceased humans' souls, and who regularly gets existential crises, and/or has to save the world with the help of his granddaughter. This series will take you through the world of belief and anthropomorphic personifications. Also, Death is a fan-favorite character. And he has a great sense of humor.

Ancient civilizations: These are completely stand-alone and you can read them in disorder. Discworld's take on ancient Egypt, the dangers of authoritarian religion, and... actually that's the only two books in that series. The latter is GREAT, but I barely remember the former.

City Watch: My personal favorite (because Sam Vimes). Crime novels following the adventures of a mismatched group of loser policemen, who eventually grow into a powerful police force (still composed of a bunch of mismatched nerds), led by the man with the strongest sense of moral and the darkest cynicism I've ever seen, who's still struggling with his inner demons. In this house we stan Sam Vimes. Also contains a cool werewolf, a 6 feet tall dwarf, an atheist golem, a transgender alchemist dwarf, a zombie activist, and Lord Havelock Vetinari.

Industrial revolution: most are stand alone (meaning they don't follow the same characters), the last three are basically a sub-sub-series of their own (do follow the same character). >stand-alone books: can be read in any order. What happens when cinema or the printing press arrive on the Disc? Also includes the famous book Monstrous Regiment, which I can only describe as "Mulan, but with more lesbians" (includes some Watch characters, so read it after getting acquainted with the Watch). >sub-sub-series: successful conman Moist von Lipwig gets recruited by the local tyrant to put back together the crumbling post system, in order to challenge the capitalistic megacorp nightmare that is the telegraph company.

Science novels: science popularization books interspersed with chapters about the wizards. I haven't read them so I can't really say anything about them, but they have cool cover art.

Happy reading! And don't hesitate to hit me up if you have more questions!

#discworld #terry pratchett #GNU Terry Pratchett

51 notes · View notes

tabletopontap · 5 years

Text

Top 30 to Look Forward to at GenCon 2019 (#21-30)

Here’s the continuation of the Top 30 with a look at #21-30, the end of the list.

Dungeon Academy - Have I mentioned lately how much I like games that play under an hour? This looks like a roll & write game published by Matagot and created by Julian Allain. It’s for 1-6 players and takes 20 min. to play. In the game, you roll dice and draw lines to chart your path from start to the dungeon, defeating monsters along the way. It looks like a fun implementation of a dungeon crawl.

City of the Big Shoulders - Published by Parallel Games and designed by Raymond Chandler III, this is a heavier game that supports 2-4 players and takes 2-3 hours to play. In this game, players work to build up the city of Chicago. It’s apparently a marriage of an 18xx style (ie. HEAVY) game of stock manipulation with the easy rules of a Euro-style game. Throughout the course of the game, players will run companies, trade stock shares, and produce/sell goods in order to become rich capitalists of industry.

Black Angel - Designed by Sébastien Dujardin, Xavier Georges, and Alain Orban and published by Pearl Games, this game for 1-4 players takes 1-2 hours to play. This is probably one of the biggest games to watch at the convention. This game is apparently a reimplementation of the popular board game, Troyes, but with a space theme. Honestly, that description should be reason enough for me to NOT be interested. However, I can’t help but be drawn into the theme. The game is described as existing in a post-apocalyptic world. Like in the Disney animated film, Wall-E, Earth’s resources have been depleted and humanity’s only hope is to board the ship, Black Angel, and seek life elsewhere. Different factions fight over who gets to control the ship and dictate the use of resources. The game has an interesting premise--exciting enough to pull me in, despite my hesitancy about gameplay mechanisms. I’ve played Troyes before, and I didn’t like the gameplay.

Undo: Blood in the Gutter - Designed by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach and published by Pegasus Spiele, this game supports 2-6 players in 45-90 min. I’m very excited about this one! It’s a cooperative game that involves storytelling and a murder mystery! Jump back in time to stop someone’s death, Quantum Leap style. From reading about this game, I get the impression that it’s a cross between Unlock! (escape room in a box) and Time Stories (escape room in a box before the Unlock! and Exit series came out, but with a sort of clunky time-loop, replay the same scenario over and over game mechanism instead of pure exploration). If the story is strong, then I think this game will be successful in adding a new twist to the popular escape-room-in-a-box genre.

Quirky Circuits- Designed by Nikki Valens and published by Plaid Hat Games, this quick playing game takes 15-30 min. for 2-4 players. The art on the box cover is irresistibly cute! Hats off to the artist, Danalyn Reyes. I should really be giving more kudos to board game artists, but this one in particular caught my eye because of the cute animals and robots. This is a cooperative game, my favorite type! Players simultaneously select programmable actions to set the course of their quirky robot in hopes it will complete its task before its battery runs out. I guess they should’ve invested in some Energizer batteries for that robot. The designer, Nikki Valens, is known for formerly working at Fantasy Flight Games on big projects like Mansions of Madness 2nd ed, Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror, and Legacy of Dragonholt. While I would love to see another storytelling game from Nikki, this game piques my interest. Plaid Hat Games is well known for publishing games set in the zombie apocalypse, Dead of Winter, as well as the Evolution series of games. Considering the pedigree of both the designer and publisher, I expect great things.

Century Golem: Eastern Mountains- I didn’t think Plan B Games would actually create and publish this golem-themed sequel to Century: Golem edition (aka the golem version of Emerson Matsuuchi’s smash hit, Century: Spice Road). I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!! They said they weren’t going to do it, and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. The artists for this one are Atha Kanaani and Chris Quilliams; Chris was also one of the artists of the original Century: Golem game. The art makes all the difference of this easy to play, easy to like goods conversion game. I might have to shell out extra money for the playmat, too. I just can’t get over how great the art is in this game! It’s also an easy game to teach to people who are new to boardgaming.

Wingspan - New designer Elizabeth Hargrave has created one of the most talked about games this year, which is surprising to me, given that this is a game about birds. Yes, you heard that right, this game is for the birds! Wingspan supports 1-5 players and takes 40-70 min. to play. Published by Stonemaier games, the game probably had some built-in trust that the game would be good. Stonemaier has been known to publish fun games with quality components. I can’t decide if it’s the tiny eggs that look like candy or the birdhouse that dispenses the dice that makes this game eye-catching. I like that this game has card drafting. I’m eager to play this one, myself!

Colors of Paris - Another newbie designer, Nicolas De Oliveira, has created this game about creating great works of art. The publisher is Super Meeple, and the game supports 2-4 players in 45-60 min. This game appears to feature a rondel mechanism. I think I’m generally pulled in by games about art, even though I fear Fresco might just be the best of them all. We’ll have to see what Colors of Paris brings to the table.

Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done - Created by Seth Jaffee and published by Tasty Minstrel Games, this game supports 2-4 players and plays in 40-60 min. This game uses both rondel and mancala mechanisms. As is to be expected from Tasty Minstrel, the wooden tokens are custom shaped pieces that look like knights, castles, and other buildings. There are also variable player powers in this game, which I’m not always a fan of because I think some player powers are more intuitive to employ than others, making gameplay feel uneven. At least, that has been my experience with variable powers in other games; it’s THE reason my gaming partner doesn’t like The Voyages of Marco Polo, and to this day I regret playing with the suggested player powers for a first game (she got whatever power is prescribed for third place, and the first player’s power was overwhelmingly strong). I’m intrigued to find out how the mancala and rondel interact with each other in this game.

Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale - Produced by Thunderworks and designed by Jordy Adan, this is yet another roll & write game that takes 30-45 min. and supports 1+ players. Like any good roll & write, the player count is really only limited by the number of papers/pencils you have. This game takes place in the Roll Player universe. Instead of rolling up the stats of a player character, this time you’re a map maker charting out distant lands for the queen.

That's a wrap on my Top 30 from GenCon. Stay tuned for my upcoming list on Essen Spiel, the biggest boardgaming convention in the world! This year’s Essen Spiel is from Oct. 24th-27th, so I need to get my preview list together quickly.

#boardgames #GenCon

0 notes

housebeleren · 5 years

Text

Core Set 2020 Limited - Premium Uncommons

We’re barreling towards Core Set 2020 Prerelease, so with that in mind, let’s also barrel forward and take a look at the Uncommons of the set and see what’s going to factor into the Limited environment in a meaningful way. Let’s get to it.

White

White is interesting in this set. There are no really standout killer cards, but there are a lot of solid picks you’ll usually run. Angel of Vitality is like that. On the surface, it’s just a Wind Drake, which is totally playable. But it has a higher ceiling if you have some good life gain effects. It not only enhances those effects, but rewards you for them as well. I’d definitely try to snag a few copies of Daybreak Chaplain if I got this card. But, it’s not a bomb. 3.0/5

I don’t know why I picked another Angel here, but sure. There’s an Angel theme and they’re generally pretty good. This one is one mana too expensive for its base stats, but if you untap with it, things start getting nuts. You definitely want to prioritize having lots of fliers if you’re running Herald, but the reward for doing so is good. 3.0/5

Master Splicer is 5/5 worth of stats spread out over two bodies for 4 mana, and that’s pretty sweet. This plays well with the go-wide strategy, and you can potentially find some ways to reuse it using cards like Yarok’s Wavecrasher. Also, there incidentally some other Golems in the set, so make sure to stay aware of that interaction if you plan on running this guy. Depending on how the set plays out, I could argue this as the best White Uncommon. 3.5/5

Blue

Air Elemental is always good, and in a set with so many small fliers, having a big one like this is the best way to keep the tide going in your favor. I’ve never seen a format where I didn’t grab Trusty Gusty here. 3.5/5

I love this guy. He’s a flier for all the decks that care about that, he can drop in out of nowhere, and he can keep the your hand filled. Azure Mage has always been playable, and this one’s even better. 3.0/5

Yarok’s Wavecrasher is a hefty beater with an aggressive cost, but he’s also loaded with subtle synergy. He’s an elemental if your deck cares about that, and he can allow you to recast your ETB creatures for extra value. Curving Cloudkin Seer into this, then recasting the Seer the following turn is some insane value, and a line of play I can totally see casting. If your deck has several creatures with good ETB effects, I can see this one bumping up another half point. 3.0/5

Black

I’m really digging this. It’s like a hybrid between Soul Salvage & Rise from the Grave, and I think it has potential to be really strong. Sure, it requires sacrifice fodder, but trading in a token to get two real creatures back is big game. Also, due to the templating, you can fetch back the creature you sacrificed to it. If you have some good creatures with ETB effects, the potential value here is insane. 3.0/5

On its own, these are decent stats for a flier at this cost, but it doesn’t take much to make this a crazy threat. Even a few lifegain effects in your deck will easily get this to be a 3/4 or bigger, which is an awesome deal. I’d pick this up early and try to grab a few enablers when I get the chance. Also, I absolutely adore this art and would love to see more of this direction. 3.5/5

Gavedigger is basically always good, and given the ETB theme in these colors, there are even possibilities to reuse it multiple times throughout the game. There are some pretty complex interactions and loops possible with this card in the format, and that makes me really excited for this core set. I’m starting high on this card. 3.5/5

Typhoid Rats are always good, and this card has two bonuses over the standard 1/1 Deathtouch. First, Lifelink is great. It helps enable several of the lifegain payoffs, gives this creature added utility if you buff it up, and can give you some extra buffer in the early game. Second, lady is a Vampire, and there are some Vampire synergies in the set that can make this better. It’s gonna trade with a card and provides a little upside while doing it. Sign me up. 3.0/5

Red

Had to start with this one. First up, living for young Chandra realness. So great & fresh. (Quick note though, the Type bar makes it look like her legs are completely disconnected at the knee, but that can’t be helped.) If you can drop this on turn 4, you should be able to snipe a creature down then get continued value out of her for future turns. Obviously, she’s best with lots of Elementals, but you’re bound to have a few of those in your Red deck. I’m gonna start optimistic with her and see how it plays out. 3.5/5

Flame sweep seems pretty good. I like that it hits opposing fliers, but not your own, so in the right deck, it’s not even symmetric. I’d run this most of the time even if it were, but that just makes it better. Obviously, feel free to side this out if your opponent doesn’t have targets, but I’d start it most of the time. 3.0/5

This card is highly situational, and I’m fully prepared to downgrade my thoughts on it after checking out the format. However, making 3 Elementals with Haste is potentially really strong in the right deck. There are a bunch of cards in the format that synergize with this, most notably Creeping Trailblazer, Overgrowth Elemental, and Yarok’s Wavecrasher. If you happen to get Thunderkin Awakener or Omnath, this is the perfect card to complement them. If you don’t have many synergies in your deck, I’d consider cutting this. 3.0/5

Green

I love the look of this guy. He’s got reasonable stats on his own, and if you have another Elemental when this comes into play, the value’s already off the chart. In a deck full of Elementals, this gets even better. 3.5/5

I remember when Pulse of Murasa first came out in Oath of the Gatewatch. We all thought it was fine, but not exciting. Wizards seems to have realized how good it is, because they’ve upshifted the rarity to Uncommon, which is totally accurate. Pulse is always great. The Instant speed plus the lifegain makes this work more like a Time Walk than it really should. I’d basically always run it. 3.5/5

These Uncommon Creature-making Equpments are super cool designs, and I’m really excited for this design space, because it makes running Equipment a lot less of a liability. This one comes in a tiny bit under curve, but still not embarrassing, and leaves you with a permanent buff even if the creature is destroyed. It’s not crazy good, but it is solid. 3.0/5

Multicolored & Artifacts

Pretty much all the Uncommon Signpost cards are good, but this one is especially good. Worst case, it’s a bear with a pump ability, so the floor is decently high. Best case, this card powers up your entire deck and is a massive threat that can dominate the board. I’d take this fairly early, but be prepared to drop it if the colors aren’t open, since it’s not a great splash. 3.5/5

Blue/White fliers is one of my favorite draft archetypes, and these types of cards are the glue that hold it together. This card is the right stats at the right price, and it can power up your whole deck if you draft it right. 3.5/5

I love this. Coiling Oracle is always great, and this one can trigger multiple times with several Elementals in your deck. I love this as a payoff and look forward to drafting the U/G version of this deck with great glee. 3.5/5

It’s a little weaker than I’d like, but it’s a consistent stream of tokens for the go-wide deck. A couple of these and an Inspired Charge is a pretty solid plan. It’s not splashable, so leave it on the sidelines if you’re not solidly in R/W. 3.0/5

This guy does it all. Gains life, blocks effectively, and smooths your hand not only on ETB, but also when he hits. This is a perfect card for the colors, and I’d run multiple copies of Soul Salvage in tandem with this guy, so you can pitch late game threats early and buy them back later. 3.5/5

I don’t know if this is a Meteor Golem format, but I sure hope it is. This is the best ETB trigger, and the possibilities to use & reuse this make me very excited for the card in this set. There’s even a little ramp to help you get there. The format could be too fast, but if Meteor Golem is playable, it’s going to be great. 3.0/5

And with that, let’s run down the rest of the Uncommons & see where we’re at.

Ancestral Blade - It’s a bear that leaves behind a 1/1 equipment. I would basically always play it, but the effect is pretty minimal. 2.5

Apostle of Purifying Light - This is anemic on its own, but it’s brutal against a heavily Black deck. The ability is relevant there too, as Black decks will want to reanimate. I’d always pick one up for the sideboard. 2.5

Devout Decree - Same as above. About half the time, this card will hit around half of your opponent’s deck. But sometimes, it’ll be your best removal or a complete blank. Grab it for the sideboard. 2.0

Eternal Isolation - It’s hard to tell if this format will be good for this card, given the number of tokens running around. But if it’s good, it’s great. 2.5

Fencing Ace - This doesn’t really seem like a Fencing Ace format, since there aren’t many good buffs for it. But it does blank X/1s nicely, so maybe side it in against the token deck? 1.5

Gauntlets of Light - Honestly, this seems like a buildaround, not an auto-include. If you can get the Gauntlets/Daybreak Chaplain deck going, there’s something here. But in a normal deck, no. 2.0

Gods Willing - It’s more of a constructed plant than anything, but if you have bomb worth saving, or creatures that can win combat on their own without a buff, I’d consider it. 2.0

Loyal Pegasus - Unlike Fencing Ace, this does seem like a Loyal Pegasus format, so I’m in on this. 2.5

Rule of Law - NOPE. Don’t do it. 0.0

Aether Gust - I don’t like that your opponent gets to choose where they put the card. I’d rate it higher if you go to choose, but otherwise this is basically in-line with the rest of this color-hosing cycle. 1.5

Brineborn Cutthroat - As-is, I think a 2/1 with Flash for 2 is playable on its own. In a deck with a lot of Instants, this can be brutal. Tentative 3.0

Captivating Gyre - It’s costly, but there’s potential for a huge blowout here. Also, this isn’t limited to your opponent’s creatures, so you can bounce two of theirs & one of your own to reuse its ETB or remove a Pacifism. 3.0

Cerulean Drake - Most of the time, this isn’t going to be worth a spot. 1/1 is just not enough action to count. However, I could see it sided in against some Red decks, because it can block a dragon every turn without breaking a sweat. 1.5

Hard Cover - One mana to turn any creature into a looter is... new. Honestly, it’s hard to rate this effect, but my hunch is it’s...ok. 1.5

Portal of Sanctuary - My guess is this usually won’t be worth it, but in the dedicated ETB deck, this could be great. It’s a buildaround. 2.0

Renowned Weaponsmith - Baseline a 1/3 isn’t awful, and if you have some Vials of Dragonfire to tutor up, it could be better. But the problem is that nothing he gets is fantastic, and there aren’t amazing Artifacts to ramp into either (other than Meteor Golem, which does make this better). 2.0

Scholar of the Ages - Salvager of Secrets was good in M19, and this gets double the action for 2 more mana. But 7 is a lot, and could be too late to matter. I’d try this and be open to it being good or mediocre. 2.5

Warden of Evos Isle - For the most part, he’s a Wind Drake, so the floor is pretty high. In the fliers deck, it’s also ramp. 3.0

Blightbeetle - This seems so narrow and meh. It’s not even great against Green decks, because they’ll either go wide or have trample. 0.5

Bloodsoaked Altar - Six mana to 2-for-1 yourself seems like a good way to screw yourself. If you’re crazy far ahead, it’s playable, but then it’s a win-more. But the rest of the time, this will either languish in your hand or you won’t have targets worth sacrificing. 1.0

Disfigure - The first copy or two are always good. 3.0

Gruesome Scourger - This works at the nexus between the go-wide deck & the ETB deck. If you can get 4-5 damage out of this regularly, it seems pretty solid. Below that, and it’s kinda wimpy. 2.5

Noxious Grasp - Like all the color hosers, this is playable against the right deck. Take this for your sideboard. 2.0

Thought Distortion - This is awful. It doesn’t get rid of creatures, so unless you’re against the all-spell control deck, it does basically nothing for tons of mana. Don’t play this. It’s for Standard. 0.5

Vengeful Warchief - If you have several good lifegain enablers, this is a decent payoff. You only need one to be at the right stats. 2.5

Yarok’s Fenlurker - It’s kinda hard to cast, but it always trades for one card, and can potentially trade for a second later. If you have lots of ways to reuse its ETB, it gets better. 2.5

Chandra’s Spitfire - My fear is that most of the time, this is going to just be a 1/3, because there aren’t tons of great pingers in this set. If you have enablers, go for it. At least Flying is a theme. 2.0

Dragon Mage - 7 mana is a lot, but a 5/5 flying threat is big, if you can get to it. The ability is... not particularly grate for limited. 2.0

Ember Hauler - A bear you can trade in for a Shock later seems good. 3.0

Fry - See Noxious Grasp & Devout Decree. 2.0

Goblin Ringleader - This is for constructed. 1.5

Mask of Immolation - This is an interesting design. It’s clearly designed to be a payoff in the go-wide deck, but sacrificing creatures at a rate of one damage per creature is painful. My hunch is it won’t be great. 1.5

Rapacious Dragon - 5 mana for a 3/3 flier is about the right rate for Red. The treasure’s aren’t super relevant, because there’s not much to ramp into after 5 in this set, except for some of the big Rares. 2.5

Uncaged Fury - When this was in Shadows Over Innistrad, it was part of a nuts combo with Rush of Adrenaline, and it was great. Now, we have it in the same set as Infuriate, which threatens to be even more explosive. Upshifting this to Uncommon was wise. 2.5

Unchained Berserker - Against a White deck, this can be devastating, because a 3/1 Unblockable attacker is potent. Against other colors, it’s a Devilthorn Fox, which is better than some of the other cards in this cycle fared. 2.0

Barkhide Troll - This is a hard to cast bear. The ability will basically never come up and there aren’t enough ways to put counters on creatures in this format to matter. 1.5

Howling Giant - 7 mana gets you 9/9 of stats across 3 bodies, two of which have tribal synergies in the set. I’m liking it, but you definitely can’t afford to have too many 7 drops. 3.0

Loaming Shaman - If there’s a true control deck in the Sultai shard, this card will definitely play a role as a way to recycle your removal & key threats, and two of these can set up a sort of a loop the way that Clear the Mind did in Ravnica Allegiance. And it’s got solid stats to boot. 3.0

Might of the Masses - Most of the time, this is about a Giant Growth, which is totally playable. Once in a while, it’ll be insane, and that’s a good spot to be in, but don’t go overboard on tricks. 2.5

Overcome - This wasn’t great in Hour of Devastation, but this set has more support for go wide, so I’m going to be willing to try one. 2.5

Season of Growth - Scry 1 every creature isn’t nothing, and making sure all their spot removal leaves you up a card is totally reasonable for 2 mana. Cards like this look bad at first glance, but I think this is actually playable. 2.5

Thrashing Brontodon - These stats are always great. There aren’t many targets for its ability, but it will sometimes come up. 3.0

Veil of Summer - This card does a lot for 3 mana, and bringing it in against a Black/Blue deck will do work. Otherwise, it does a lot of nothing. 1.5

Woodland Champion - A bear that gets bigger is for sure playable, and in a tokens deck, this can be nuts. 2.5

Corpse Knight - This puts a clock on your opponent, and comes down early enough to peck through for a few damage to begin with. I’d mostly always run this. 3.0

Ironroot Warlord - Like most of the signpost uncommons, this is great. Hard to attack through and a great mana sink late. 3.0

Lightning Stormkin - Flying Elemental fits in nicely with both possible themes for this color combination. I’m suspecting it’ll be good. 3.0

Moldervine Reclamation - Cute buildaround idea, but it’s pretty expensive to get going. If you have a really solid curve from 2-4, I’d consider it. 2.0

Ogre Siegebreaker - Having the Vraska’s Finisher ability as an activation is interesting, and once you untap with this will make combat a nightmare for your opponent. Plays really well with tokens. 3.0

Colossus Hammer - Yes, it’s massive, but it’s a beast to equip. Maybe if you have two Renowned Weaponsmiths in your deck? But mostly, I’d leave this for the EDH crowd. 1.5

Diamond Knight - It’s anemic at first, but it doesn’t take long to get up to par, and once you get it to a 4/4, you’re in business. It definitely won’t save you if you’re behind though, so play it with caution. 2.5

Diviner’s Lockbox - 5 mana to maybe draw three cards is awful. Don’t run this, though it is cute if you have Scry going on. 0.5

Manifold Key - This design is interesting, because the mode Limited cares about is the exact mode that Constructed doesn’t care about. I’d rather just run fliers than have to pay 3 to give my stuff evasion. 1.0

Pattern Matcher - This is cute. If you have lots of duplicates of things, this can be excellent. 2.0

Retributive Wand - Nope, not gonna happen. If there were ways to sacrifice Artifacts in the set, I’d consider it, but not as is. 0.5

Salvager of Ruin - The effect is narrow, but it works great post-combat. I’d usually run this, and in some decks, it’ll be great. Plays well with Gravedigger and cards with good ETBs. 2.5

Scuttlemutt - 2/2 that also fixes your mana is solid. I’d always run this in a 3 color deck, and often in 2 color decks. This also incidentally can counter several of the color hosers. 3.0

Cryptic Caves - I like this a lot. If your mana base can handle a colorless land, this is great. 3.0

Alright, that’s it for the Uncommons. After looking through these and the Commons, my gut impulse is that the colors are all fairly balanced, but Green and Blue both stand out in regards to their creature quality, while Black stands out for the quality of its removal. It’ll take playing the set a little to know if that’s true, but those are my early thoughts.

Rares & Mythics are up next.

#MtG #core set 2020

0 notes