Avatar of Woe

octal9
octal9 Posts: 593 Critical Contributor
in MtGPQ General Discussion
Now that the list is properly public, can we discuss this?



I rarely complain about cards, but this is a masterpiece and it is hot garbage.
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Comments

  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Can't all be gems. 

    Every rarity level has its "hot garbage". 
  • Krishna
    Krishna Posts: 205 Tile Toppler
    edited July 2017
    So, it basically has Emerge 6?
    I could see adding it in a deck for the Black Node in Trial of Ambition, lose 4 of your own creatures. Other than that... 
  • Laeuftbeidir
    Laeuftbeidir Posts: 1,841 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2017
    this is kind of a planeswalker specific MP. Good (not particulary great) with Lili 3, maybe 2 / 1 as well. Graveyard spawn and stuff. I'd probably master - and never use it again.
    But Subtypes_Avatar? A little bit like Gods_of_Amonkhet_Ability nonsense , hope it gets changed before published

    /E:
    "When a creature dies"
    not "when one of your creatures dies"..this makes it actually a bit more useful and exploitable. But still not really a MP IMO
  • naphomci
    naphomci Posts: 127 Tile Toppler
    Ohboy said:
    Can't all be gems. 

    Every rarity level has its "hot garbage". 
    That might be acceptable if this wasn't going to ruin an elite pack. And, masterpieces really aren't supposed to have hot garbage, they are, by definition, the best of the best. There are commons and uncommons considerably better than this. I honestly don't know if I spend the crystals when I have a chance at such a worthless card. 

    The other issue is that this card isn't even remotely reminiscent of the original. No one cared about the cost reduction, they cared about the tap, kill a dude. 
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Global emerge
  • octal9
    octal9 Posts: 593 Critical Contributor
    edited July 2017
    Ohboy said:
    Can't all be gems. 

    Every rarity level has its "hot garbage". 
    While I don't disagree, I really think this card could (should) have something more going for it rather than as @Krishna succinctly pointed out, Emerge 6 (+Emerge 6 when your opponent creature dies, yet still...).

    It takes time, as you know, to grind up 400 jewels. Whatever pack AoW is in is the one that I'll skip simply to avoid pulling it - the duplicate mythic would prove more useful.
  • Krishna
    Krishna Posts: 205 Tile Toppler
    There are commons and uncommons considerably better than this. 
    Yep. This card is going to upset a good number of people who drop 400 crystals. But so did Counterspell, Cascading Cataracts, etc... 

    This is a really great game for people who love to complain, D3 just provides an endless amount of criticizable content, each seemingly more ridiculous than the last. 
  • Krishna
    Krishna Posts: 205 Tile Toppler
    Ohboy said:
    Can't all be gems. 

    Every rarity level has its "hot garbage". 
    But this Hot Garbage has a really rare border around it. It's like a clefairy or jigglypuff in Gen 1. Well, more like a Gen 1 Porygon.
  • naphomci
    naphomci Posts: 127 Tile Toppler
    Krishna said:
    There are commons and uncommons considerably better than this. 
    Yep. This card is going to upset a good number of people who drop 400 crystals. But so did Counterspell, Cascading Cataracts, etc... 

    This is a really great game for people who love to complain, D3 just provides an endless amount of criticizable content, each seemingly more ridiculous than the last. 
    The one's you listed are far better than this though....

    It's literally a 12/12 vanilla. At best, you reduce it to cost 18? At which point you had to have had played at least a few kill spells, probably some of your own creatures. In the best scenario for this card, it is still just terrible.
  • nexus13
    nexus13 Posts: 191 Tile Toppler
    The biggest thing is that this doesn't remotely translate from paper.  Plus there is no reason it shouldn't, they are doing both checking of the graveyard for effects and activated abilities to kill creatures already in the set so they should have been able to do something to at least make the abilities resemble the paper card vaguely.
  • Abenjes
    Abenjes Posts: 253 Mover and Shaker

    this card is an epic fail.

    where is the activate gem that allows you to destroy target creature.


  • ElfNeedsFood
    ElfNeedsFood Posts: 944 Critical Contributor
    Ohboy said:
    Can't all be gems. 

    Every rarity level has its "hot garbage". 
    Remember the first lot included three supports you need to use together. Including the ever so useless Lightning Grieves....
  • Szamsziel
    Szamsziel Posts: 463 Mover and Shaker
    BTW he's not terrible.  30 mana means that he is good mana battery and can be used for cycling deck (black lack of good mana gains). He may be a good Sarkhan friend...
  • arNero
    arNero Posts: 358 Mover and Shaker
    Ohboy said:
    Global emerge
    This.

    This card is black, so if you have multiple of this and stack up on the kill spells (or the Scorpion God or Angel of Invention + Cartouche of Solidarity combo via Sorin), getting multiple 12/12s doesn't seem so impossible. A rather annoying mana sink, admittedly, but hey, five dead creatures from either side of the board and this is free. And you know what? Works with Fumigate and Tragic Arrogance too.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    If you want to make a fun theme deck out of it, scrap heap + zombies or immortal dispoiler! 
  • arNero
    arNero Posts: 358 Mover and Shaker
    Ohboy said:
    If you want to make a fun theme deck out of it, scrap heap + zombies or immortal dispoiler! 
    Hoho, sounds pretty evil.

    I'm now imagining running this in Legacy with Bone Splinter + Amalgam package. A bit too busy though if I include Relentless Dead into the mix.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    With this in your hand your dispoiler of souls can never die. Just add something to give it Vigilance. 
  • arNero
    arNero Posts: 358 Mover and Shaker
    edited July 2017
    Ohboy said:
    With this in your hand your dispoiler of souls can never die. Just add something to give it Vigilance. 
    Oh sheeeeeeeeeddd...... good catch.

    In legacy, we have Censer ........ In Standard... no idea, can't think of anything on top of my head.
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Pair it with scrapheap and berserker armor for suicidal charges while storing up to cast your 12/12 of woe.

    I mean, it's not a tier 1 deck. But it's fun to make this kind of decks. 
  • Tilwin90
    Tilwin90 Posts: 662 Critical Contributor
    edited July 2017
    I would agree that this is not masterpiece-worthy, but I am not sure the comparison with Colossus is necessary fair (I find the Colossus to be a highly oppressive and overpowered card as it is not to mention it is not color-dependent - masterpiece-worthy).
    The avatar has the problem of being a vanilla 12/12 which makes it so underwhelming. Compare it with much fairer vanilla cards that are powerful but don't see significant play anyway (such as Serpopad which is only a rare) and the 6 mana boost on death trigger is suddenly not that impressive.
    Would I say there are worse masterpiece out there? ABSOLUTELY! I could enumerate the few I have in mind here:
    - Champion's Helm/Lightning Greaves/Gauntlet of Power - worse of the worse. If you ever print something like this again you might as well stop printing any other masterpieces that set because there will be outrage everywhere as to how horrible and unplayable they were. These could all pass as uncommons for sure.
    - Counterspell - at that mana cost it's a gamble really. It plays based on the opponent deck and it's not even a relevant sideboard card.
    - Maelstrom Pulse - super underwhelming, if anyone sees a mega good use for it I'm all ears, cause I would be THRILLED to see my opponent play it! Even with embalm and supports tokens aren't such a big thing. I would see this rare at best.
    - Sunder - just as situational, I will rarely find this useful against the opponent and rather super annoying when played by the AI (troll card). That's because the AI generally dumps their hand unless it can't play specific cards due to lack of viable targets, while as players we tend to accumulate cards in hand. It's probably the mana cost that makes it so unappealing from my point of view.

    Don't get me wrong, I love fringe cards that play nice with specific strategies (such as reanimation, discard, support destruction, support casting etc.) or have interesting interactions, so it's not all about raw power level. These cards I just enumerated are either super narrow hate cards, super expensive (making them impractical) or simply too constricting from a deckbuilding perspective.

    For instance I am super excited about Consecrated Sphinx - it would make for some very interesting builds where you are trying to make the opponent draw a ton of cards so you can pump it up big time. Or Dark Ritual which I hear a lot of people were underwhelmed with, but could cheat some fun (otherwise overpriced) big stuff into play. Lord of Extinction is another interesting card, even though at first glance it doesn't scream overpowered - time will tell just how good it is, but the play potential it has is just great. Or Omniscience... if I ever get my hands on it I'll be super excited to try and make a fun deck around it, even if it won't end up being the best deck or whatever. 

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