The Journey Into Nyx Happy Fun Spoiler Time Thread!

[ArchieO]

I don't think pharika is awful. There does seem to be a deck in theros block that want to use the graveyard and it seems to be in G/B. So with the right other tools, I think being able to generate loads of 1/1 deathtouch creature to hold down the board might be pretty useful.

I think it just looks bad compared to athreos, which is at the same CMC, but it ludicrously powerful

Sorry iamafish, should of been clear, I was referring to her playability in commander

[iamafish]

ok, yeah, I can imagine her being a little underwhelming in broader formats. I mostly think in terms of limited, because that's my main exposure to Magic through LRR.

[BlackDragonMTG]

I'm disappointed in pharika. Firstly she doesn't fit the format properly of minor gods with static effects. Then her activated ability fails flavorly and finally it's pretty poo poo giving a sedge scorpion to my opponents is really not good when I'm trying to stop athreos from going to value town on me.

Did you see athreos!? Athreos god of value, lord of beaty face, and king of win. I think his standard value will be around 30$ for his life time. I definitely want a few for when I get to play casually again

[Asthanius]

I'm disappointed in pharika. Firstly she doesn't fit the format properly of minor gods with static effects. Then her activated ability fails flavorly and finally it's pretty poo poo giving a sedge scorpion to my opponents is really not good when I'm trying to stop athreos from going to value town on me.

What do you mean she "fails flavorly"?

Deadly poison can be healing medicine in small amounts, and this dichotomy is reflected in the god whose province is such tinctures.

She's all about the poison.
Also, it's funny that you mention Athreos. You can actually use her ability in response to a creature hitting the graveyard. That means that you can exile a creature that Athreos would bring back, albeit by giving your opponent a 1/1 deathtouch creature. But still, that's a pretty good trade for somebody's bomb that you just managed to get rid of.

[ArchieO]

So i built Athreos as a Tribal Clerics Deck, holy balls there are a lot of clerics that have been printed in B/W colors. I was up at over 80 creatures at one point before cutting out some of the dead wood but I still had to make about 15 hard cuts.

[iamafish]

Hmm, i misread pharika to mean that you were always putting the 1/1 into the battlefield. Makes it a little worse that I thought it was.

[BlackDragonMTG]

God of affliction should be more like beginning of your up keep place a -1/-1 counter on target creature. Creating death touch snakes by removing a card aint much of an affliction. Idk just my personal opinion.
And if im trying to stop athreos' card advantage I donr wanr ro be giving him a good blocker

[Lurkon]

God of affliction should be more like beginning of your up keep place a -1/-1 counter on target creature. Creating death touch snakes by removing a card aint much of an affliction. Idk just my personal opinion.
And if im trying to stop athreos' card advantage I donr wanr ro be giving him a good blocker

I don't think she fails on the flavor aspect. That said, I don't think I like her.

ETA: I've changed my mind. She's awesome. Instant-speed power politics is pretty good.

[Firbozz]

I'm stung by Pharika following at the heels of the other JOU gods. For starters, while there is a lot in G/B right now that makes use of the graveyard, they all run counter to what Pharika does. Want to make a huge Nighthowler or Nemesis of Mortals? Major nonbo with Pharika, given she's exiling creatures from your graveyard. I could see them going in the same deck, but it'd be very awkward.

Beyond that, all the other gods have had very flashy abilities. Keranos draws cards and bolts things. Iroas makes your guys not take damage while attacking. Athreos is Athreoa. And Kruphix? I'll admit he's not the strongest (talking standard here), but at least he's got two super-flashy abilities. Pharika's ability is pretty useful, sure... but it's not exciting. At best, it's just a value play.

Flavourfully, it's kinda cool, but I don't think it plays up her dual nature. Pharika should be about the duality of life and death. To borrow from the flavour text of Pharika's Mender, "The direst venom becomes a panacea under Pharika's guidance." I mean, snakes are cool and venemous... but I don't feel an efforts been made to connect this to Pharika's dossier.

At the very least, it could make for some cool interactions with constellation.

I'm trying very hard to accept this, that I didn't get what I was hoping for. I started playing magic with M14 (not counting the one MMA draft), so I guess I'd better get used to disappointment. To be clear, I mean with specific cards, not with whole sets. Not every card's gonna be perfect (see: Mindreaver), so better to move on and enjoy the cards that are awesome.

[Kapol]

I don't think she fails on the flavor aspect. That said, I don't think I like her.

ETA: I've changed my mind. She's awesome. Instant-speed power politics is pretty good.

Lurkon, did she threaten you? Is there something you need to tell us? Just blink once for yes.

[Volafortis]

Battlefield Thermaturge. Do want. So bad. Obviously intended to enable strive, but it does so much more.

Beyond making all removal cheaper, Curse of the Swine becomes silly.

[Utilitarian]

Yea I love the interaction with Curse of the Swine. Target any number of creatures for UU.

[Geoff_B]

How exactly would Worst Fears work in practice? The text says "you see all cards that player could see and make all decisions for the player". What's to stop me deciding that the player concedes the game?

[RedNightmare]

I believe that's a choice you can't make because it strictly isn't part of the game. You can't make them do that just as much as you can't make them pour their drink over their heads

[WickedBoy6]

Shame it cant be used in the beginning of the duel.

"I cast Worst Fears, and...you mulligan down to one. Let's start."

[Kapol]

From the mindslaver rulings:

You can't make the other player concede. A player can choose to concede at any time.

[ArchieO]

Battlefield Thaumaturge is a card I want to work with, the only problem being as a commander player its 1 of 99 and very fragile, I'll find a niche for it somewhere though

[Geoff_B]

Worst Fears is one of those cards that's going to get patched like crazy isn't it?

[Jenelmo]

Not really as there is already two cards that does the same thing: Mindslaver and Sorin Markov so the rules are pretty clear on what you can and can not do while controlling a player

[ArchieO]

Welp I made my Pharika deck, not one of my favorite deck builds ever but I think I am happy with the result, went with chunk of flavor in the form of cards like Pox, Dakmor Plague and Nettlevine Blight, some of the better Dredge stuff including a Loam Engine with the Cycling Lands. I also chucked in Curse of Deaths Hold and Illness in the Ranks to compensate for giving other people 1/1's.

Fairly happy with what the deck will do and very happy that I resisted the voice in the back of my head that said "Infect is super flavorful with Pharika"

[Utilitarian]

I'm a little confused by Dictate of Heliod.

So far all the other Dictates have been mutual effects. EVERYONE draws an extra card, EVERYTHING takes double damage, ALL lands tap for double mana.

Now this one is just... your things get +2/+2. It's a perfectly fine card but it's totally not in keeping with the cycle.

[susu.exp]

I'm a little confused by Dictate of Heliod.

So far all the other Dictates have been mutual effects. EVERYONE draws an extra card, EVERYTHING takes double damage, ALL lands tap for double mana.

Now this one is just... your things get +2/+2. It's a perfectly fine card but it's totally not in keeping with the cycle.

There're a couple of blogatog posts on this. Basically it's a templating thing (team buffs only go to the controller these days, also see M14 slivers). The development column mentions that they started by looking at symmetrical effects to add flash to and then ran out of cards they could modify in that way that worked well with the set. So they then looked at other enchantments to do this too. So the original plan was to have a cycle where all cards affected all players, but they departed from it when they couldn't find enough good effects to complete the cycle.

[Kapol]

Right. I can't think of any really good board-wide mechanic for white personally. I'm not even sure of a good one for black to be honest. As it stands, the white Dictate will be a bomb and limited, likely fizzle in Standard, and be solid in EDH.

[Utilitarian]

Ah. If it'd be me I'd have gone back and undone the symmetrical ones to make them one sided as well.

[Kapol]

Why? Then you'd be wasting a bunch of design time on the other cards that have perfectly fine effects. And just because it's a cycle doesn't mean they have to be the exact same. They're all enchantments that have flash and carry 'global' effects, even if they don't affect both players.