Angels & Dragons
General forum
Posted on Jan. 7, 2021, noon by Keqing420
so i wanted to get everyones opinions regarding how wotc seems to be treating these 2 creature types.
the upcoming set Kaldheim has already entered spoiler season, and i've seen 4 different angels at cmc 3 or less. they are "renegade reaper", "youthful valkyrie", "resplendent marshall", and "righteous valkyrie". one had a cmc of 2. another was black. all within Collected Company range, and all benefit from the "dump as many onto the battlefield as possible" strategy that Collected Company provides.
the reaper fuels the grave for the marshal. the reaper and righteous valkyrie will both be gaining you life ensuring the valkyrie gets her anthem.
abzan angels company? its possible. pioneer gives us Angel of Vitality for even more life gain, and Resplendent Angel to profit off that life gain.
in the entire game, there are 14 angels that cost 3 or less. 10 of which are legal in modern, and 5 for pioneer. this is before kaldheim of course.
for dragons, there are 6 total. all 6 are in modern, but only 5 for pioneer. and most suck.
am i asking too much for dragons in Collected Company range? my favorite creature type and my pet card in one deck. if angels at cmc 3 or less can have 4 toughness, or 3 toughness while gaining +1/+1 counters (meaning they pass the Lightning Bolt test), then dragons should too.
i'd love to see a rare dragon like:
flying, first strike, trample firebreathing 3/4
there have been some dragon related cards spoiled, but no actual dragons just yet. what do you guys think? do we need more cheap dragons? how likely do you think it is we will get them?
Caerwyn i'm not really worried about limited since i almost never do prereleases, plus a given card will only ever see limited play once (unless someone cheats at prereleases). but i would definitely like to see dragons become more than a gimmick deck in nonrotating formats. at best we've seen prison decks that just "happen" to have a big dragon as their finisher, for basically no other reason than because its a big flyer they can cast while Blood Moon is out. but i'd like to see real dragon synergy, not dwarves that help dragons. those dwarves are just gonna get blown up by a Crux of Fate, or mess up other potential tribal synergy.
January 7, 2021 12:47 p.m.
Caerwyn: plus i think it'd be funny as heck to use company to swarm the field with a Dragon Tempest in play.
January 7, 2021 1:04 p.m.
Their design plan may be to specifically keep dragons and dragons matter outside of CoCo range. Which is a bummer because adding more juvenile/smaller breeds of dragons would be cool and add more flavor to the game.
It makes sense for this set I imagine. Scandinavian/Norse/Snow Fantasy mythology probably does not include tiny little beasties. They are probably all like the Midgard Serpent or equally has enormous and what have you.
January 7, 2021 5:09 p.m.
Mcat1999: i'm hoping for dragons with cmc 3 or less. and angels have always been mainly white, dragons mainly red, and elves in green. as for goldspan dragon, i don't think it beats the other 5 cmc options in nonrotating formats. it'll be great in standard, but in modern or pioneer i'd rather have Glorybringer or Demanding Dragon.
Caerwyn says... #2
When we first saw this was a tribal set with both Angels and Dragons, and then saw low-costed Angels spoiled, my first thought was that we would get a few low-costed dragons. After all, for tribal to be effective in Limited you need a good curve within that tribe and a sufficient number of cards in that tribe (fixed by Changelings).
It looks like, rather than make low-costed dragons, Wizards is going to make non-Dragon cards with Dragon payoffs (like the legendary Dwarf spoiled at 2 mana) fill up the lower part of the "Dragon Tribal Limited curve" rather than utilize low-costed dragons themselves. We might see a few low-costed dragons, but I do not expect there to be a great number of them as we are seeing with Angels.
That said, I would not mind in the slightest if Wizards defied my above expectations and we got a fair number of playable low-costed dragons.
January 7, 2021 12:32 p.m.