Lorwyn Essentials

[TheAbe]

Aaron, John and I were talkign about this stuff in e-mails. I figure we should bring it here so others can benefit from the converation.

What in Lorwyn makes teh essentials?


Here are the cards I think are in teh discussion:

Liliana Vess - tutors, maybe twice. Play her now.

Crib Swap - Removal for Akroma and Darksteel, doesn;t require attacking creature, who cares about the 1/1 changeling they get back.

Eyeblight's Ending - Almost as good as Rend Flesh, which made the cut.

Oblivion Ring - Top notch removla but can get disenchanted, bring it back. Good enough to make the grade?

Shriekmaw - The essentials needs creatures. This is splashable, evokable, and a 3/2 feared guy for five mana, which gives you evasion and a solid pertinent body.

What else? Austere Command? Garruk? Chandra? Jace? Profane Command? Wispmare?

[kerbythepurplecow]

Hmm... interesting! It seems Lorwyn has given us gads of yummy removal! I think that Crib Swap could be considered better than Rend Flesh in many cases. Like you said, who cares about the 1/1? Why not have the removal that can hit as much as possible?!
I agree with your other mentioned cards, but of course the removal base must be examined to see what can be switched/changed, ect...
As for the other mentioned, Austere Command is intriguing.... the idea of being able to spot pick is tempting... but what could it replace? Not Rout, not Wrath... Vengeance? Ah well, it's at least a consideration....

[GrimJack]

Aftert playtesting some MtG last night, I have to say Shriekmaw is better than I thought. This guy is the new Flametongue Kavu for 2007. Very flexible, better than Rend Flesh, if you want a straight black-for-black card swap.

I tink Essentials is better served with more two-for-one card advantage rather tahn single card spot removal. There is a lot of single card spot removal already... 187s are certainly better.

New thoughts: Did you know Desert has beenfunctionally altered so that it deals its damage immediately instead of after combat damage is assigned? That struck me last night... you know, Desert is actually pretty good now. Desert is an old card that may need to get rexamined for the essentials.

[md22mdrx]

Casually, Jace has been way better than expected. It allows tons of card draw while screwing over smaller decks at the table. If we're talking 250 duels, not near as good. The other plainswalkers seem to be of great benefit as well, but I seem to be getting Jace out way more for some reason. Not enough experience with the others yet to determine usefulness. Other than that, it's basically the same set of cards as above posts. Oblivion ring is good and is one of the few things to target plainswalkers. Shriekmaw is funny in a deck with lots of recursion.

But for the ESSENTIAL 250 specifically ...
1. Crib swap
2. Liliana Vess
3. Eyeblight's Ending
4. Shriekmaw
5-8. Your "other" choice of Plainswalker
9. Profane Command
10. Oblivion Ring

Thinking of moving up Profane Command. The Essentials 250 gets you a LOT of mana quickly. Double Black not THAT hard to come by with so much mana fixing. Profane command wins games, not just plays tricks or cantrips or removal.

<font color="#C0C0C0" size="1">[ November 08, 2007 01:57 PM: Message edited by: Haddix.dec ]</font>

[TheAbe]

Yep - Crib Swap is money.

[jrr]

Crib Swap is definitely hotness, and what scary creatures are pro white? Yeah, exactly...

Austere Command has served me well so far, I think it could replace Akroma's Vengence since you can pick what critters survive to (hopfully) put you in the commanding position.

I've yet to draw my Shriekmaw, but he's in the deck, I swear!

I think Garruk is a definite must have. Between mana acceleration and (nearly) uncounterable Overrun effect... scary... too bad hes climbing the price charts around $25. Also too bad I didn't get him in my box.

As a whole, this set is pretty cool, and well worth buying a box due to the large number of cards worth $4 and up as well as 2 sitting at the $25 mark!

John - Where did you discover the change to Desert? I can't find it.

[GrimJack]

Originally posted by jrr:
John - Where did you discover the change to Desert? I can't find it.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I dunno now. I swear I read it one way a week ago, but now Im reading it just like it always was. It still appears to suck, but for a freak temporal anomaly that occurred only to me, it was cool for a micro-second.