[Community Discussion]: The official Fate Reforged spoiler discussion
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Dec. 27, 2014, 11 p.m. by Epochalyptik
This will be the official one-thread-covers-all discussion for Fate Reforged spoilers.
Fate Reforged overview:
Number of Cards: 185
Prerelease Events: January 17-18, 2015
Release Date: January 23, 2015
Game Day: February 13, 2015
Official Three-Letter Code: FRF
MTGSalvation spoiler list
MythicSpoiler spoiler list
MagicSpoiler spoiler list
AngryBearTony says... #3
I really feel like all the clans got some neat new toys to play with, especially in limited. Really would like to see a Temur Sabertooth in my packs. I can see Frontier Siege+Hornet Queen being seriously crazy in constructed.
January 13, 2015 11:51 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #4
AngryBearTony Except that is way too slow.
Choice cards are awesome, though. I want to see them take off in contructed because of versatility.
January 14, 2015 3 a.m.
nighthawk101 I actually think Reality Shift could find a home in modern merfolk as either a quick removal spell because fish would rather have a 2/2 to deal with than say a tarmogoyf or the like (thought that's a gamble) or if I'm guaranteed to lose a lord from some kills spell or burn spell I may be able to get a new merfolk off the top of my deck manifested. Just a thought though haven't tested the theory much yet.
January 14, 2015 3:49 a.m.
nighthawk101 says... #6
@dan8080: Yep, Reality Shift will definitely see play in Standard and probably in Modern, since it's a blue exile removal spell. Again, 95% of the time you're not casting it on your own creatures and not contributing to your manifest plan. There will be scenarios like the one you mentioned, getting a 2/2 and a fizzled spell, but the primary reason it's in your deck is as removal.
January 14, 2015 9:07 a.m.
Souljacker says... #7
Talking about manifest, I hear a lot of people talk about the less than 40% chance to hit a creature/upside. I think not enough emphasis is put on the fact that you can also effectively scry away a useless land, because I think there's plenty of times that when you manifest, you're happy to put away the land on top of your library as well as manifesting a creature. What I'm saying is that the only time that manifesting is bad, is when you manifest a non-creature spell. For example, when you play Write into Being, meaning you usually have 3 lands in play, and say you have another in your hand, and you see 2 lands, you basically saved yourself 2 bad draws and got a 2/2 for 3 mana.
What do you think? Is manifest gonna be a thing?
January 14, 2015 9:18 a.m.
I could see 3 manifest spells finding homes. Write into Being has enough versatility that it could find a home. At 3 mana you are overpaying for that 2/2 shell but in a deck that features plenty of morph creatures that's not as much of an issue and you get to see another card to boot. Reality Shift is the one everyone is talking about and for good reason. Blue has gotten some instant speed removal in the past but non-white spells that exile a creature are hard to come by. Here we get one for the low cost of 2 mana and the draw back is potentially not horrible in the least. Think of it another way, the strongest abilities tacked on to creature shells fall into 2 categories, "when cast" and "enters the battlefield". With Reality Shift you can rob your opponent of both of those and they still need to "play the spell" so the initial cost of the creature isn't nearly as good. I can't wait to hit the Green player and exile his Courser of Kruphix to manifest his top deck Hornet Queen. Soooo much value. Added to that though, you also only have a 40% or so chance of giving your opponent a creature card manifested so the odds are in your favor, particularly in modern where spells get stronger and so people want to play more of them. Pod has closer to a 50% chance but even that isn't all that great. Lastly, Soul Summons gives you a colorless 2/2 for 2. Here we are paying the right price for a vanilla 2/2 even if we would want a little something extra from it. We also get a colorless creature which isn't completely irrelevant in a standard with Ghostfire Blade and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in it. This one is the hardest to find a home for, maybe something like UW Robots where creatures and Ghostfire Blades are plenty.
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is the card that interests me most. It's clearly got power but will it be enough? It's competing with Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Goblin Rabblemaster, Mogis's Marauder and other extremely powerful 3 drops that will either affect the board right away or will have a greater effect on the following turn. I have a feeling she is just going to sit by the way side and watch standard go by.
January 14, 2015 10:50 a.m.
@Souljacker Also, Courser of Kruphix is a card . . . which combined with fetches let's you really be picky about top of deck, so that's nice for making manifest decisions, although it does remove the trickiness aspect.
January 14, 2015 11:33 a.m.
I'm looking at Brutal Hordechief and can't help but think about how powerful Hellrider was when it was in Standard.
Same CMC, same P/T, similar ability (but gains you life as well)... missing Haste, but has the ability to allow all but one of your attacking creatures to get through.
I think he's going to be a thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if I see some interesting 
Modern brews that use both Brutal Hordechief and Hellrider... 8 copies of the same finisher in a deck, instead of 4, can certainly make it more consistent and playable.
January 14, 2015 12:55 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #11
Rayenous, Brutal Hordechief is definitely a thing. Especially with all these tokens.
Edge and Scale, Bring Forth the Victory Playtest
Standard*
SCORE: 135 | 0 COMMENTS | 17641 VIEWSJanuary 14, 2015 2:20 p.m.
The problem that Hellrider has in modern now is that in most cases is that he requires a board position in order to be valuable. Standard doesn't have a 4 mana board-wipe such as Damnation or Wrath of God but modern has both of these and more.
As for seeing Brutal Hordechief in standard, I believe that is a viable strategy given other options. Things such as Mardu Ascendancy can make this into a strong aggro strategy. Unfortunately we don't have Lingering Souls around to make it even better.
Just my two cents.
January 14, 2015 2:46 p.m.
I've never seem Femme_Fatale back down from the opportunity to shamelessly post a deck list. <3 Femme!
January 14, 2015 3:01 p.m.
So, I called this soon as I saw Monastery Mentor spoiled, and I hope I am wrong so I can grab a few copies on the cheap, but...anyone have speculation as to what he will do? I see him being huge.....HUGE in fact in Modern token lists. I am thinking since he will clearly be the backbone of Jeskai Token Burn he will be a high price card during his stay in Standard, but once the rotation happens I am thinking his price won't buckle much and then go up. Most Token decks in Modern, especially BW Tokens are build with few to no creatures. This allows every single thing you do after you drop this guy to cause prowess monk tokens to be made. I think tats a big deal...he may take over some of the 4 drop planeswalker slots in BW Tokens, inspire his own token build, or just sit in a control deck waiting for some kind of enf of your turn storm effect into a monumental token army staring you down. "enter combat...". "I scoop...".
What do you think? Sorry if this was already discussed, but a 57 page thread is hard to comb through at 7:45am
January 15, 2015 7:48 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #16
capriom85 It would probably be alright as a 1 of, but bad in multiples. Because he is a 3 drop, it makes him easy to prioritize, but if you make him the focus of the deck, your whole game plan slows down.
xzzane probably has more to say about it than me, but I don't think it will be a huge deck changer like Cruise was.
January 15, 2015 8:12 a.m.
I'm highly doubtful this will be in any competitive b/w token decks. I do expect to see expirementation in the short run though. Monastery Mentor fits best in a control shell, I feel. Tokens can't make optimal use of him. Plus, one of the strengths of tokens is that removal doesn't really bother us. Oh so you're patching my token? Heres 3 more. Lingering Souls and Spectral Procession are the key token producers. That 3 cmc spot is incredibly hard to fill with those two already in it. And mentor is in bolt range, so you can potentially waste your third turn play. And tokens needs that turn to stabilize the board presence.
January 15, 2015 8:22 a.m.
nighthawk101 says... #20
@Indigoindigo: Shocklands in Dragon's Maze were 1 in 22 packs, so fetches will probably be a similar ratio.
January 15, 2015 8:42 a.m.
Indigoindigo, are fetches in FTF?!
xzzane, point taken. I planned to experiment with 1 of him in place of a tidehollow sculler. I can definitely see how he can be a wasted play, though, and even if I play him and bolt happens its still a wasted play with no pay out instead of Lingering Souls or Spectral Procession, I agree. At best he is a T3 play that doesn't do any actual work until T5 since you can't use his monk until then assuming you played something T4. You seem to understand BW Tokens well; anything you see from FTF that makes you say...I needed to see this card!
January 15, 2015 8:42 a.m.
oh, its a ploy like that. I was hoping for the other 5 fetches and I missed the spoiler or something. They just want to push an already decent set harder.
January 15, 2015 8:44 a.m.
Part of the reason I understand B/W tokens so well is I reinvented the archetype, so to speak. Back when I was a filthy casual, I started making a soldier deck for a friend of mine. I made that into a mono white token deck, and did the best I could with it. I started to understand things like the curve (even if I had never actually heard the term at that point), and built the best mono white token deck I could. I went to a competitive modern tournament....And got a soul-crushing defeat. Someone mentioned to me that b/w tokens would be better, so I thought why not? They didn't explain any of the cards in b/w tokens because I'm assuming they thought I knew about even a little about modern lol. Well, I spent days looking through every black card on gatherer and stumbled across things like Duress and Thoughtseize. I thought they would have been useful for taking out the things that killed me in that tournament, so I added them. And the deck gradually evolved from there. So I have a pretty intricate knowledge of the archetype haha. And I haven't seen anything yet, but I don't really care for standard, so I haven't been paying attention all to much either xD
January 15, 2015 8:56 a.m.
Tappedout was also a huge help now that I think about it. When I was first getting started with b/w tokens, a few people helped set me in the right direction. Without tappedout I would be a total scrub lol.
January 15, 2015 8:59 a.m.
Souljacker says... #25
Yeah the KTK fetches will be in the land slot together with the gain lands, not the same ratio there but the actual chance to pull one is made roughly the same as pulling a shockland in Dragon's Maze.
January 15, 2015 9:11 a.m.
Indigoindigo says... #26
So there's a chance of both a fetch and a rare in a pack?
January 15, 2015 9:23 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #27
xzzane Yeah, without TO, I'd be a filthy casual playing RDW and thinking that Magic costs too much money.
Without TO, I wouldn't be able to crush peoples' ambitions during spoilers season and telling them their combo is rubbish. (It seriously is. There is 1 combo deck in standard, and yours is not one.)
January 15, 2015 9:30 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #30
ChiefBell Yeah, Ascendancy combo lasted exactly 3 weeks before being renderred obsolete.
January 15, 2015 10:31 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #31
Hey everyone, the official prerelease/release event discussion is up!
buildingadeck says... #1
I expect Reality Shift to be about the same value as Banishing Light in the long run, and with that, as has been said before, to be one of the harder uncommons to procure. But as a blue player, it's almost essential when trying to run mono-blue or Simic in this standard. It could even be great in izzet for direct removal, saving your burn for other places. That's just me.
I'm torn between going Jeskai or Temur still. I have a feeling Jeskai is going to be stronger, but I need some of the Temur cards, like Shamanic Revelation and Temur Sabertooth.
January 13, 2015 8:55 a.m.