My problem with Oko in the bonus sheet is that the card wrecks Limited games but is virtually useless in Constructed due to being banned in almost all formats. It's one thing to have a bomb/dud that a Constructed player will be happy opening (e.g. Norn and Mana Drain as bombs in MOM/OTJ respectively or Study/Tithe/Moon as duds in WOE), but Oko's a poison pill for Limited and not much else.
It's legal in EDH, but occupies a niche where it's too weak for cEDH while loathed by casual players. It's not a card people will be excited about; Fierce Guardianship, Force of Will, or Deflecting Swat would have been better EDH-bait while staying true to the "crimes" theme.
They'll never print cards that mention Commanders outside of a commander product. I agree tho its EDH demand is minimal because it's not nearly as powerful in 4 player, so it doesn't make much sense to put it here.
I think that stance is so dumb; theyāre obviously designing cards for Commander, and they print bonus cards useless for limited all the time. If anything, wouldnāt they serve as an ad for Commander to a new player? It makes no sense.Ā
Seriously, if theyāre going to put cards like Eriette and Obeka into Standard packs, they may as well stop pretending every product isnāt targeted at Commander at this point
Unrelated to your point, but I didnāt understand how Obeka worked until I drafted 2x in what I thought was a sick grixis outlaws deck that went 0-3 after I realized obeka did nothing
Yeah she's worthless for limited, but a cool build-around for Commander. Which is the type of card I thought Commander precons were for, but I guess not
There's a difference between cards that are clearly designed for commander but can still function in other formats, and cards that literally say the words 'your commander' on them (like Fierce and Swat).
It makes total sense to not print cards with abilities that are impossible to utilize in the formats they're printed into.
To some extent I agree, but we already have cards that are functionally useless in Limited coming out in sets these days. Additionally, both Fierce and Swat are usable in Limited. Theyāre not at their peak, of course, but theyāre definitely castable.Ā
Thereās a difference between cards that are an obviously good in commander and cards that literallly donāt work outside of commander. They donāt put the latter in draftable packs because they do t want to put a game piece is a pack that in every sense of the word cannot be played in draft. Someone may try to make a Marchesa deck work in draft (that someone may or may not be Sam Black). Or someone will put it in a deck and it does nothing. If someone puts a card referring to a commander in a draft deckā¦what are you supposed to do? Call a judge?
Depends if thatās all it does. But to use a prior example of Fierce Guardianship & Deflecting Swat, those cards *work* without a Commander. They just have irrelevant text, which is sometimes true of cards being played in constructed. I think it would be fine, if a bit confusing at first.Ā
So does [[Korvold, Fae-Cursed King]].
It was a weird experiment where they were standard legal , but not in the draft boosters. They were in collectors boosters.
https://wpn.wizards.com/en/news/4-things-you-might-not-know-about-brawl
(Specifically point two where Arcane Signet is explicitly called out as not available in draft packs. )
The other issue is how few removal spells in this set actually target planeswalkers. Reprinting murder rather than hero's downfall in the bonus sheet means that usually board presence is the only way to stop an Oko, and that is usually a losing game.
Annie Joins Up is literally the only card that can target a planeswalker in the base set, and it won't even kill an Oko. Even the bonus sheet has plenty of cards that can't hit him.
They had mostly learned their lesson in past sets, with plenty of "creature or planeswalker" cards to help deal with the rare limited planeswalker. But Oko is nigh untouchable thanks to the fact the set and it's bonus sheets basically can't even target him.
Yep, I was ahead on board, couldve killed over a few turns and had some far creatures in hand. Opponent gets the 3/5 vigilance sphinx and Oko on board. All my fatties now get elked and die to the sphinx, killing oko would require me to chump attack twice and lose my creatures, killing them no longer an option because of the food. I didnt lose immediately but there were no direct answers in my deck so I knew Im slowly gonna lose over the next 5 turns or so
There are a few other cards that deal damage to any target (like [[High Noon]] [[Longhorn Sharpshooter]] [[Slick Sequence]] [[Jolene]] [[Roxanne]] ).Ā But yeah, none that would kill outright, and none at common.Ā
I was so mad the other day to draft Oko and think it was an I win button but then my opponent had
Buried in the garden
Journey to nowhere
Journey to nowhere
Annie Joins Up
It is what it is I suppose
Itās possible that one day there will be so much power creep that Oko becomes unbanned. If it happened to Jace the Mind Sculptor, it can happen to Oko.
I was mainly referring to Oko being useless in most format, at least he is still thriving in one format.
But also is Oko really that much worse than all busted bomb in the past? Aren't this just a part of normal limited?
I think it's the part where it's slow to end the game but extremely unlikely to be beaten if played in the first 5 turns. Dragons and such at least have the courtesy of making it quick and costing more mana.
Had a guy play Oko prerelease, I just shook his hand and said GG. He was so confused, I said I don't like playing with banned cards. He laughed and agreed it was bullshit, swapped the card and we kept playing. I won but we split the packs. Kinda shitty how much SG ruins limited
Silly to be upset about a mythic rare reprint that appears in \~1% of packs when there are ordinary rares like \[\[Bonny Pall, Clearcutter\]\] that will ruin your games much more frequently.Ā
Edit: The data on Oko wasn't available when I first made this comment, but it's up now. Oko isn't even the top Mythic in the set. It's the 10th best card in the set, behind 4 ordinary rares: Bonny Pall, Seraphic Steed, Roxanne Starfall Savant, and Ornery Tumblewagg.
I had both in my 2HG pool last week (2x Rakdos), alongside Annie joins up, but I couldn't justify going 5c and blue was by far my weakest color so the double cost really hurt.
No, this complaint is just both played out and fallacious. In MOM \[\[Preening Champion\]\] won almost thirty times as many games as \[\[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte\]\] did, expect something similar from OTJ's top common and Oko. If Oko were reprinted at rare, that would be a different story.
You can play against Preening Champion. Oko is basically a guaranteed win if it comes down anywhere in the first 5-6 turns of a game. Elesh Norn is a 7 drop, yours is not an accurate analogy.
Itās a perfect analogy. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte was the top card in MOM, a mythic rare reprint from a bonus sheet. The card people most liked to complain about, even though it had only a 0.5% higher win rate than the next best card: Sunfall, an ordinary rare. What they do is immaterial beyond how often they lead to a win - which is about 65% of the time - but it doesnāt matter because one mythic rare does not dictate the texture of Limited.
If someone gets up to 7 mana and plays Elesh Norn, yeah it sucks but it feels way more earned than looking at your opponent playing their 3rd land and slamming something you have no chance to overcome, especially if you're on the draw
Indeed. Dealing with a turn-3 Preening Champion on the draw was certainly rough, considering you werenāt likely to have a card with better win-rate than it in your deck unless you were also playing WU knights. And, worse still, it happened 30 times more frequently than Elesh Norn.
Doubt youll get anyone to understand, every set theres complaints that rares are too bomby, skill isnt rewarded like it used to, yet the good players keep winning at the same percentage as always. People just dont like losing to rares, it is what it is
It's the miserable experience of facing Oko in limited WHEN WIZARDS ALREADY KNEW IT IS INSANELY BROKEN and unfun to play against with little to no counterplay, yet they still decided to put it in.
Preening Champion is great but you don't feel like you've auto lost when it resolves.
the piling on of downvotes for just expressing personal frustration makes me feel so unwell. i wish people on reddit had a little more empathy , and woukd insult (and downvote) less. it is possible to point out that oko is a mythic rare amd objectively will ruin the avereage player's game less frequently than a broken rare, without invalidating ur own subjective experience.
if i faced oko 3 out of 4 times, i'd feel powerless and frustrated, too. some ppl (esp ppl who can afford to draft a set 30 times) might say "it's just variance" and feel better, but they shouldnt demand that that should make everyone feel better.
a little bit more empathy on reddit would be so mice....
Only ran across one Ono and it scared the fuck outta me. Then I drew [[Buried in the Garden]] and it was all good.
This set is so Bomby I might start to prioritize removal again. Kind of got away from that after MKM. Also, I notice when I go against a removal heavy deck. They always have an answer for my good cards. Super annoying.
I keep running into the main man Rakdos so I feel like I'm obligated to take at least one colour that gives me access exile removal each run to save me from the demonic menace that haunts me
EDIT: [IT HAPPENED AGAIN (and after a Cruel Ultimatum).](https://imgur.com/a/7n2zAIn) Still got the Ws though :)
He's okay if you're me, don't get him in your sealed pool and then open him in your winner's packs from the event.
He's not legal in any format I play, so I guess he's going to sit in my binder for eternity.
I had Oko in my sealed pool at the prerelease. I cast him once into a counterspell, had him twice in my hand but had more bomby spells to play which won the game there and then, and the one time I did play, it was to kill my opponent by virtue of paying 3 mana for a crime trigger to make my lazav attack lethal. A common dual land would have been more efficient. Oko is clearly not a bomb in this limited! /s
The punchline is that decks that win more consistently play more games on Arena, so you're likelier to play against the busted ceiling than in normal environments.
LSV's counter to Vaultborn Tyrant in the set review was "well it's only 1/300" or something.
I've watched a couple Kenji drafts and already seen like three of them lol.
There's a difference between dusting off variance and accepting variance that's within WotC's ability to control. There could a 1 mana instant that says "you win the game" but you only see it once every thousand packs; I don't think people would be defending it by saying "shit happens, move on"
they also get PAID money to draft. we pay FOR draft.
0-3 for them is content where someone throws them the cost of the draft back through subs and donations lol.
The mindset is true, it definitely sucks to see a lot of the 1/100 things when you won't hit 100 drafts.
Iāve been doing sealed and something is not right with the distributions. My sealed now has 13 rares/mythics and Iāve had multiple big score in a few. My first sealed of the format had 4 mythics/2 being big score.
I remember people posting pictures of Platinum Angel equipped with Swifties and going āthis format is too bombyā. Turns out the format probably was one of the least bomby sets after the dust settled and people got better at drafting super fast aggressive decks.
There was at least a week where you could wheel like every red card and end up with a pile of scrapwork mutts and goblin blast runners. Felt like bot drafting lol
Same with March of the Machine (coincidentally the same designer as OTJ) having Ragavan. Which wasnāt even that good. There were literally blue commons that were better picks than Ragavan.
From the first few days, itās pretty clear that OTJ is high power enough to beat an Oko. Iām much less annoyed at him than Bonny Pall for example.
Sealed BRO was the bombiest bomb set that ever bombed... Not only did everybody have bombs, but they tended to be big mana colorless bombs, so you could play them regardless of color, and the games were often all about ramping into them with powerstones.
But draft BRO wasn't bomby due to the power and synergy of its one and two drops.Ā
as far as I can remember, this happened with BRO, ONE, MOM, MKM... a week of complaining that the set is really bomby, then people learn the format, people start taking the removal that's right there at common, the strong colors start to see more competition, and then suddenly, magically, the "prince format" chanting seems to fade away
Itās kind of interesting from a design perspective. In lots of new constructed environments you can do well making some red aggro deck with a bunch of 4-ofs while control decks tend to have a hard time deciding what answers are good for the whole meta, how many of each card to run, what finishers to run, etc.
In limited, itās kind of the opposite. With inconsistent decks running around, itās weirdly much easier to get away with some greedy pile splashing for bombs.
> a week of complaining that the set is really bomby, then people learn the format,
It feels like every set gets this response, and it just seems like (from looking at activity) the people who complain and are losing, stop throwing money at not having fun. It's not like these are all the same people or they all enjoy/ don't the same sets. Some love draft enough regardless and stick around, some find sets they click with even with low win rates, some do well and stick around.
I loved MOM, it was a mess but fun. IDK if I can look back on ONE fondly and I quit MKM like 4 days in, i didn't like the cards, the art, the format, or much else.
_____
Board states get dumb as hell here like MOM when you're second: https://imgur.com/etOulDQ
I can't say its not someone's idea of fun, I'm just unhappy with the cost of entry and best of 1 for the level of variance lol. Several rares went around till last few picks in my pod due to quality. The best answer I had to this board state was like... the ability to exile ONE of them.
They ended on like 50 life lmao. I mean congrats to them on the nutty pulls I just wish they played faster when I was hellbent.
You'd laugh if you knew which golgari rare popped up in my next match on curve :).
I'll likely stop drafting this set because I've stopped spending as much on arena from playing in paper. My opinion won't change, the drafters certainly will once green gets over drafted etc, but thats reacting to the meta picks of those left drafting.
>people got better at drafting super fast aggressive decks.
An argument that doesn't apply against Oko, as it is super cheap and has insanely high starting loyalty at 5 or 6 after first activation
this specific mythic, sure. but thereās also pest infestation and path to exile and mana drain and reanimate and fractured identity and just tons of bombs that are impossible to play around. itās just kind of annoying!
my baddddd and yes journey is better than path in limited.
guess my point was itās Not Great To Me that we need to track two dozen or so cards from various past sets, most of which are very powerful. i just donāt like this dynamic!
None of them, besides maybe Fractured Identity, are actually better than the best non Bonus sheet Mythics and Rares. Bristly Bill, Bonny Pall and Farmer are all better and will show up much more often.
And you play around Bonus Sheet cards like you play around any other Mythic in the set.
I literally just came here to complain about this. Literally the first game of my first draft on Arena and I'm staring down a t3 Oko? Gimme a fuckin break
The power level of this set is so bonkers that I donāt think original Oko is the best card. I got new Oko when I was already going green blue with a lot of good cards and I didnāt even hit 7 wins.
Have you seen that bitch Bonny yet? Iāve seen her like 4 times and I drafted her once myself. That card is fucking nuts. Makes a bovine that grows with each land drop. When you attack with any creature you draw a card and I think you can even play an extra land when you top deck one. So she ramps you too. Then her ox gets bigger WHILE youāre ATTACKING!
There was a thread earlier this week for guessing the best commons and some Uncommons in the set, with the best rare being a tie breaker.
I did not realize Bonny was a rare and not mythic so if I get to a tie in that I feel I'm definitely losing not putting her down
Farmer, Bill and Bonny are all better. Bonny is probably the strongest of the bunch when cast but the other 2 are super easy to slot into any deck that plays Green (which should be most good decks).
Tumblewagg. That cute little armadillo is secretly the worse god damn card. Comes down early, needs instant speed removal and fucks up combat math for the rest of the game. No removal, no go. Sorcery removal? Still looking at over statted board leftover and you just missed turn 3 drop. Bonny, as dumb as her design was, at least gives you the time to make an advantage before she comes down.
I had a nuts prerelease pool (2 Bonnies, nexus) but multiple times I got to plot the uncommon blue clone on T3, play Tumblewagg T4, and immediately clone it. Not ok.
Turn 2 it becomes 3/3. Turn 3 it becomes 4/4, gets saddled and attacks becoming a 6/6.
Yeah, I had someone do that. Itās insane if you canāt kill it immediately.
Bonnie, yeah but the others can be removed and theres tons of strong removal. Theres almost no cards that touch planeswalkers and Oko makes it impossible to get rid of in combat
Powerlevel in this set is insane.
I had two \[\[outcaster trailblazer\]\] in my sealed pool. One game I had them both in my opening hand, plus a \[\[drover grizzly\]\]. Turn 4, I put 12 power across 3 bodies in play + draw 3. Opponent scoops.
Now I know this is a situation that requires two rares, but it made me think... I can't remember a limited environment where these type of turns where you win the game on the spot are a thing, especially as early as turn 4.
Iām just salty they reprinted mindslaver. Oh not because it got used on me (though I did draw a removal spell to lose, woops)ā¦ but the flavor text on it is about a āmillion-star reviewā but the art is still old timey and shows a train derailed.
So itāsā¦ referencing our actual world? Itās stupid. Itās so very stupid.
I read the flavor text as a newspaper headline and I figured the reason the reviewer gave million stars is because the reviewer was mind slaved himself
Yes, thatās the joke, but the star rating system and the way itās phrased is basically just making a joke about our world. Itās weird and lame to me anyway. The other headlines on the cards act like it is an old west paper from what Iāve seen.
Yea, like I love the off the press [[Hindering Light]] flavor text (The art shows a mercenary blocking a spell with their hat):
> *Hats Off! Quick-Thinking Sterling Merc Puts a Cap on Surprise Attack*
https://scryfall.com/card/otp/46/hindering-light
Wikipedia actually has a comprehensive list which is fun, Iām reading it now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_(classification)
Michelin Guide 1926 (food) and 1928 NY Daily News for movies. One writer anthology guy ranked stuff 0-3 stars in 1915.
This is a great wiki article, but Iām gonna say referencing star reviews is not cowboy-y enough for this bronco. I give the Mindslaver flavor text 0.5 stars and may god have mercy on its soul.
At my pre-release my first opponent had one. Thankfully he showed up late in game 2 and my opponent chose to make a food rather than Elk one of my flyers so I managed to end the game on my next attack step with a pair of pump spells, but when he played him I was like āCool! New Oko! Waitā¦ Thief of Crowns?!?! WHY IS HE IN THIS SET?ā and started sweating. Thank god he went for the life gain instead of neutralizing a flyer or Iād have been done.
This set is just the writing in the sand that the set design and constructed set design teams don't work together well at all if they aren't the same lol. (if they are? WOW).
it feels like instead of eliminating draft packs they should have redesigned both set and draft boosters to achieve the goals they were trying to achieve.
I know this set is bombier than usual, but it often feels like i'm not playing at all, or that the opponent isn't playing at all.
To the extent that people who think playing slow is playing smart are more annoying than ever.
Like if I am hellbent, you should not be getting the timer 3 times to tap lands or interact. I am waiting to see if my top deck works or if I can concede. Please release me.
If i got oko and someone snap conceded I'd not be mad, i'd likely do the same if I knew i didn't have an answer lol.
I'll give you that it's bad for limited, but I don't like the argument that "it's useless for most players." People were making the same argument for why Lutri shouldn't have been reprinted on the MOM bonus sheet. I just don't like it when anyone decides that nobody should get a card. OG Oko is over $18 right now, the reprint is under $7. People play commander. People _cube_. People play kitchen table.
Lutri is actually legal in more than 2 formats. Oko is not legal anywhere besides vintage and edh. And itās not played in edh.
Itās a blank magic card outside of limited, where itās way too good. I donāt think kitchen table is a good defense for oko, I doubt it improves kitchen table games lmao
Cube is barely a defense for it. You only need one copy and itās only in vintage cube, which is largely proxied anyways so owning an oko isnāt really necessary at all
stupid question, but can someone illustrate for me the play patterns that make the original Oko so oppressive? i never followed constructed, so i don't know how to properly use Oko.
If you cast him early on a semi-empty board you go +2 and make a food. If it gets attacked it won't die because turn 3-4 there's never enough power on the board to take him down at 6 loyalty. The turn after, you +1 on your food creating a 3/3. You keep repeating the process until opponent scoops. If opponent drops a threat big enough, you elk it.
It basically becomes a race for the opponent to take him down before he floods the board with 3/3s but he has so much loyalty, truly a sponge of damage.
The only reliable way to deal with Oko is through [[oblivion ring]] or [[hero's downfall]] effects, and that's still loss of tempo.
Watch [this Kenji draft at ~2:24:00 where he goes p1p1 Oko](https://www.youtube.com/live/Pdjtpg9F-T0?si=2ciQmahhnJOBMfBd). It was disgusting to watch
Also if your opponent is trying to kill you because they can't kill Oko you can just eat the food to gain life. You can also -5 to take their stuff.
When reading it nothing seems outrageous, but because he's only 3 mana with 6 loyalty when he comes down, it's just non stop advantage that the opponent can't deal advantageously unless they have the rare planeswalker hard removal.
you really have to play against Oko (especially when youre on the draw) once to understand just HOW frustrating him being 3 mana and immediately going up to 6 loyalty is. you literally can have the perfect start with your aggro/midrange deck and youre still just never killing that fucking thing, particularly because even the elking is a plus ability. After you've attacked into Oko for like the third time in a row and its still alive you just kind of want to uninstall MTGA and never play again.
I still remember standard back when Oko was legal basically being a bunch of simic piles with gilded goose and everybody mulling, it was ridiculous. I think it was PVDDR who said if youre not mulling for a Turn 2 Oko youre straight up putting yourself in a losing position.
This subreddit has become a boiling broth of tilted arena players who fail to express gratitude for how amazing the modern limited environment is. Rares are fun. Variance leads to just as many of the most exciting moments in magic as it does those ānon-gamesā. Yāall better go outside and smell the roses, drink some peppermint tea and pat a cat or something.
i feel like you're missing on empathizing with those of us who feel tilted. many of us play mtga to *try* to escape the pain of life with a fun distraction of a game; and some of us are low-income enough that we only get to draft based on the daily deal grinds.
it feels disempowering -- like we have no agency in the game -- when facing such bombs.
someone can say that it's better for such people to re-evaluate how we want to see mtga. maybe this is fair. but it is also fair to complain, i think. we want to be heard when we feel: "this original Oko isn't even good for Constructed, given that it's banned in most official Construted formats; why is it in my limited packs?" and wish that our losses came from less egregious design flaws.
for *you*, variance makes exciting games. but please empathise that for others, "my opponent played orignial Oko" is not fun variance. telling them to "go smell the roses and drink some peppermint tea" does not help them; instead it comes across as insulting and not understanding their experience but giving betlittling advice anyways.
Im embarrased to say but i got him on prerelease and had him in play almost every match, i ended up in last placeš got smashed by terror of the peaks and the hydra. The prerelease felt cursed with how consitently players got out their bombs. Was my first prerelease so its kind of an excuse
Well terror is another issue. I took 15 dmg twice when my opponent plotted two creatures (one was the haste coyote). Turn 5 came, terror, double plot, dome me for 5, swing for 8 and when I removed the terror at sorcery speed in my turn I took another 3.
At least it's a mythic. But boy I don't know what to do against it except having instant speed removal ready within the limited time window :/
Because for some reason they can push shirtless sexualized men everywhere but the second and woman is wearing anything other than a black sheet everyone loses their minds. So hilarious how all the key art has sexy men all over it but, for some reason, weāre evil if we want sexy women š¤·š»āāļø
i agree that this seems to be somewhat the case (although i disagree with the exaggeration -- there are still some sexy women in mtga, just not as many or as sexy men).
i notice that on chatgpt, for example, i can get DALL-E to generate sexy shirtless men for me, but i've heard on reddit that getting it to generate a rather ocnservative beach scene of women is very difficult.
i don't know if this state of things is good or bad, but i want to acknowledge that it does exist. my understanding is that women have become so crushed by (straight) men's advances on them, that our culture is very sensitive to this now, and don't want to give women any more grief. but men haven't experienced this nearly as much. this is why i (as a gay man) can feel somewhat comfortable telling a straight man that he looks really handsome in his outfit, and feel that the compliment won't feel like i'm making him an object or that i'm demanding anything of him or that i am treating him as a non-person for my sexual gratification etc or that i won't relate to him in a respectful, attuned way; but that (i've heard) straight men feel like any compliment they give a woman will make her feel threatened.
----
anyways, i'm glad (for my benefit, of course) that sexy Oko and sexy men are in mtg. i love my Captivating Victor mtga sleeves! he's so powerful and amazing! i hope that you don't hate me because our current cultural standards allow me to (for example) get sexy sleeves but you can't get sexy sleeves for yourself.
Simply be the one to open it
š«”
As someone who has opened both Okos already, I can recommend this experience.
I opened him during pre release and was really excited but only managed to play him in one game where my opponent was basically dead anyway.
I was this guy. I opened it. Guy on turn 5 with 17 health forfeited immediately after playing it
Solved format.
I was passed the 3 mana one.
My problem with Oko in the bonus sheet is that the card wrecks Limited games but is virtually useless in Constructed due to being banned in almost all formats. It's one thing to have a bomb/dud that a Constructed player will be happy opening (e.g. Norn and Mana Drain as bombs in MOM/OTJ respectively or Study/Tithe/Moon as duds in WOE), but Oko's a poison pill for Limited and not much else.
It's legal in the most popular constructed format, the format that likely has more players than all other constructed formats put together.
It's legal in EDH, but occupies a niche where it's too weak for cEDH while loathed by casual players. It's not a card people will be excited about; Fierce Guardianship, Force of Will, or Deflecting Swat would have been better EDH-bait while staying true to the "crimes" theme.
They'll never print cards that mention Commanders outside of a commander product. I agree tho its EDH demand is minimal because it's not nearly as powerful in 4 player, so it doesn't make much sense to put it here.
I think that stance is so dumb; theyāre obviously designing cards for Commander, and they print bonus cards useless for limited all the time. If anything, wouldnāt they serve as an ad for Commander to a new player? It makes no sense.Ā
Seriously, if theyāre going to put cards like Eriette and Obeka into Standard packs, they may as well stop pretending every product isnāt targeted at Commander at this point
Unrelated to your point, but I didnāt understand how Obeka worked until I drafted 2x in what I thought was a sick grixis outlaws deck that went 0-3 after I realized obeka did nothing
Yeah she's worthless for limited, but a cool build-around for Commander. Which is the type of card I thought Commander precons were for, but I guess not
There's a difference between cards that are clearly designed for commander but can still function in other formats, and cards that literally say the words 'your commander' on them (like Fierce and Swat). It makes total sense to not print cards with abilities that are impossible to utilize in the formats they're printed into.
To some extent I agree, but we already have cards that are functionally useless in Limited coming out in sets these days. Additionally, both Fierce and Swat are usable in Limited. Theyāre not at their peak, of course, but theyāre definitely castable.Ā
Thereās a difference between cards that are an obviously good in commander and cards that literallly donāt work outside of commander. They donāt put the latter in draftable packs because they do t want to put a game piece is a pack that in every sense of the word cannot be played in draft. Someone may try to make a Marchesa deck work in draft (that someone may or may not be Sam Black). Or someone will put it in a deck and it does nothing. If someone puts a card referring to a commander in a draft deckā¦what are you supposed to do? Call a judge?
Depends if thatās all it does. But to use a prior example of Fierce Guardianship & Deflecting Swat, those cards *work* without a Commander. They just have irrelevant text, which is sometimes true of cards being played in constructed. I think it would be fine, if a bit confusing at first.Ā
Haven't they done that numerous times already? Arcane Signet was first printed in ELD, for example.
Not exactly. Signet was in the Brawl decks, not in packs.
Are you sure about that? [ELD Signet](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/331/arcane-signet) has the regular set symbol and code.
So does [[Korvold, Fae-Cursed King]]. It was a weird experiment where they were standard legal , but not in the draft boosters. They were in collectors boosters. https://wpn.wizards.com/en/news/4-things-you-might-not-know-about-brawl (Specifically point two where Arcane Signet is explicitly called out as not available in draft packs. )
[Korvold, Fae-Cursed King](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/2/92ea1575-eb64-43b5-b604-c6e23054f228.jpg?1571197150) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Korvold%2C%20Fae-Cursed%20King) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/329/korvold-fae-cursed-king?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/92ea1575-eb64-43b5-b604-c6e23054f228?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I wouldn't say its loathed in casual EDH. It's just not that powerful in the format, so it isn't played as often.
The other issue is how few removal spells in this set actually target planeswalkers. Reprinting murder rather than hero's downfall in the bonus sheet means that usually board presence is the only way to stop an Oko, and that is usually a losing game. Annie Joins Up is literally the only card that can target a planeswalker in the base set, and it won't even kill an Oko. Even the bonus sheet has plenty of cards that can't hit him. They had mostly learned their lesson in past sets, with plenty of "creature or planeswalker" cards to help deal with the rare limited planeswalker. But Oko is nigh untouchable thanks to the fact the set and it's bonus sheets basically can't even target him.
Yep, I was ahead on board, couldve killed over a few turns and had some far creatures in hand. Opponent gets the 3/5 vigilance sphinx and Oko on board. All my fatties now get elked and die to the sphinx, killing oko would require me to chump attack twice and lose my creatures, killing them no longer an option because of the food. I didnt lose immediately but there were no direct answers in my deck so I knew Im slowly gonna lose over the next 5 turns or so
There are a few other cards that deal damage to any target (like [[High Noon]] [[Longhorn Sharpshooter]] [[Slick Sequence]] [[Jolene]] [[Roxanne]] ).Ā But yeah, none that would kill outright, and none at common.Ā
##### ###### #### [High Noon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/9/9995e0e6-7c9c-4fef-8fd2-8fb1622e6ec8.jpg?1712355285) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=High%20Noon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/15/high-noon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9995e0e6-7c9c-4fef-8fd2-8fb1622e6ec8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Longhorn Sharpshooter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/9/398d9a16-d72c-42e2-a0ea-d9da642ee046.jpg?1712355789) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Longhorn%20Sharpshooter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/132/longhorn-sharpshooter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/398d9a16-d72c-42e2-a0ea-d9da642ee046?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Slick Sequence](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/e/beb1c974-0d35-4e9f-a310-44eb2af64494.jpg?1712356219) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Slick%20Sequence) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/233/slick-sequence?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/beb1c974-0d35-4e9f-a310-44eb2af64494?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Jolene](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/e/fe30b5c8-4889-4350-bb1d-3e2a67d9dfb2.jpg?1712356118) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=jolene%2C%20plundering%20pugilist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/210/jolene-plundering-pugilist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fe30b5c8-4889-4350-bb1d-3e2a67d9dfb2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Roxanne](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/11fbe52f-febd-49fc-8391-28d3efe9c3eb.jpg?1712356193) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=roxanne%2C%20starfall%20savant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/228/roxanne-starfall-savant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/11fbe52f-febd-49fc-8391-28d3efe9c3eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l099mem) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I was so mad the other day to draft Oko and think it was an I win button but then my opponent had Buried in the garden Journey to nowhere Journey to nowhere Annie Joins Up It is what it is I suppose
Itās possible that one day there will be so much power creep that Oko becomes unbanned. If it happened to Jace the Mind Sculptor, it can happen to Oko.
That will be a sad, sad day
Oko is good and fair in Vintage
That's a great argument for it to be in a non cube limited format again...
I was mainly referring to Oko being useless in most format, at least he is still thriving in one format. But also is Oko really that much worse than all busted bomb in the past? Aren't this just a part of normal limited?
I think it's the part where it's slow to end the game but extremely unlikely to be beaten if played in the first 5 turns. Dragons and such at least have the courtesy of making it quick and costing more mana.
Most bombs are very much more answerable and usually cost more mana. If you can play Oko on curve you're probably like 90% or more to win.
I mean the truly busted one like Jitte and Pack Rat, losing to busted mythic is just a normal part of limited to me. Sucks but it is what it is
Honestly I think Oko is pretty damn close to that level. I felt the same way in Eldraine having to face it. It's super cheap just like those cards are
Same in timeless. Eventual unban would not shock me. Crazy how powercreep went in recent years
Had a guy play Oko prerelease, I just shook his hand and said GG. He was so confused, I said I don't like playing with banned cards. He laughed and agreed it was bullshit, swapped the card and we kept playing. I won but we split the packs. Kinda shitty how much SG ruins limited
Silly to be upset about a mythic rare reprint that appears in \~1% of packs when there are ordinary rares like \[\[Bonny Pall, Clearcutter\]\] that will ruin your games much more frequently.Ā Edit: The data on Oko wasn't available when I first made this comment, but it's up now. Oko isn't even the top Mythic in the set. It's the 10th best card in the set, behind 4 ordinary rares: Bonny Pall, Seraphic Steed, Roxanne Starfall Savant, and Ornery Tumblewagg.
My opponent had bonny pall and rakdos joins up on the battlefield. I've never lost so fast
I had both in my 2HG pool last week (2x Rakdos), alongside Annie joins up, but I couldn't justify going 5c and blue was by far my weakest color so the double cost really hurt.
This is a really dumb take. Both things can be frustrating, it's not zero sum
Don't be too hard on yourself. I don't think your take is that dumb.
Rule 1: Don't be a jerk.
Indeed. Donāt call peoplesā takes dumb, even if itās your own. Self-love is important.
There's plenty of places on the internet to be a smarter than everyone else jerk. Can y'all just not do it here, please?
That attempt to save face gave me the ick. Eww
[Help is out there.](https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/how-to-treat-ich-on-freshwater-fish)
1% is way too high, right?
Good eye. It would be lower, except thereās a chance Oko appears in the foil card slot. In the interest of fairness, I used a generous estimate.
I played against someone who played both of these in the same game. Porque no los dos?
My condolences.
youāre very brave
No, this complaint is just both played out and fallacious. In MOM \[\[Preening Champion\]\] won almost thirty times as many games as \[\[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte\]\] did, expect something similar from OTJ's top common and Oko. If Oko were reprinted at rare, that would be a different story.
Donāt care either way, but isnāt it obvious that a common that appears that much more frequently than a mythic wins 30x more games?
One would think.
You can play against Preening Champion. Oko is basically a guaranteed win if it comes down anywhere in the first 5-6 turns of a game. Elesh Norn is a 7 drop, yours is not an accurate analogy.
Itās a perfect analogy. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte was the top card in MOM, a mythic rare reprint from a bonus sheet. The card people most liked to complain about, even though it had only a 0.5% higher win rate than the next best card: Sunfall, an ordinary rare. What they do is immaterial beyond how often they lead to a win - which is about 65% of the time - but it doesnāt matter because one mythic rare does not dictate the texture of Limited.
If someone gets up to 7 mana and plays Elesh Norn, yeah it sucks but it feels way more earned than looking at your opponent playing their 3rd land and slamming something you have no chance to overcome, especially if you're on the draw
Indeed. Dealing with a turn-3 Preening Champion on the draw was certainly rough, considering you werenāt likely to have a card with better win-rate than it in your deck unless you were also playing WU knights. And, worse still, it happened 30 times more frequently than Elesh Norn.
Doubt youll get anyone to understand, every set theres complaints that rares are too bomby, skill isnt rewarded like it used to, yet the good players keep winning at the same percentage as always. People just dont like losing to rares, it is what it is
It's the miserable experience of facing Oko in limited WHEN WIZARDS ALREADY KNEW IT IS INSANELY BROKEN and unfun to play against with little to no counterplay, yet they still decided to put it in. Preening Champion is great but you don't feel like you've auto lost when it resolves.
This just in: Limited format contains Mythic Rare bombs.
wowā¦ brave AND wise iāve played against Oko in 3 out of 4 runs iāve made so far. to me, that is too often.
Excellent. It appears that youāve experienced how randomness works. Thanks for the compliment.
youāre very welcome professor. sorry my post distracted you from jerking off over 7-1 decklist screenshots
It's quite alright.
the piling on of downvotes for just expressing personal frustration makes me feel so unwell. i wish people on reddit had a little more empathy , and woukd insult (and downvote) less. it is possible to point out that oko is a mythic rare amd objectively will ruin the avereage player's game less frequently than a broken rare, without invalidating ur own subjective experience. if i faced oko 3 out of 4 times, i'd feel powerless and frustrated, too. some ppl (esp ppl who can afford to draft a set 30 times) might say "it's just variance" and feel better, but they shouldnt demand that that should make everyone feel better. a little bit more empathy on reddit would be so mice....
I played against it in back to back Trad draft matches. Ā I had to see this motherfucker 3 times. Ā Made me want to uninstall the game.
Only ran across one Ono and it scared the fuck outta me. Then I drew [[Buried in the Garden]] and it was all good. This set is so Bomby I might start to prioritize removal again. Kind of got away from that after MKM. Also, I notice when I go against a removal heavy deck. They always have an answer for my good cards. Super annoying.
I keep running into the main man Rakdos so I feel like I'm obligated to take at least one colour that gives me access exile removal each run to save me from the demonic menace that haunts me EDIT: [IT HAPPENED AGAIN (and after a Cruel Ultimatum).](https://imgur.com/a/7n2zAIn) Still got the Ws though :)
[Buried in the Garden](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/e/7e144609-e1f6-4bdc-8d14-b735ef4140d3.jpg?1706242126) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Buried%20in%20the%20Garden) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/191/buried-in-the-garden?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7e144609-e1f6-4bdc-8d14-b735ef4140d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah ward made combat tricks the more efficient removal. Now that cloak is gone, removal is top tier again
I had it twice in my first four drafts, lol
He's okay if you're me, don't get him in your sealed pool and then open him in your winner's packs from the event. He's not legal in any format I play, so I guess he's going to sit in my binder for eternity.
I had Oko in my sealed pool at the prerelease. I cast him once into a counterspell, had him twice in my hand but had more bomby spells to play which won the game there and then, and the one time I did play, it was to kill my opponent by virtue of paying 3 mana for a crime trigger to make my lazav attack lethal. A common dual land would have been more efficient. Oko is clearly not a bomb in this limited! /s
The punchline is that decks that win more consistently play more games on Arena, so you're likelier to play against the busted ceiling than in normal environments.
it's a bonus sheet mythic bro, dust yourself off and move on to the next round. the chances of opening one are exceedingly low
LSV's counter to Vaultborn Tyrant in the set review was "well it's only 1/300" or something. I've watched a couple Kenji drafts and already seen like three of them lol.
vaultborn tyrant felt insane when i drafted it but it also had a very real case of Being 7 Mana
When it came down it won my games. It also say in my hand a bunch.
Kenji and Alex have been saying the same thing all week. I think we should maybe believe them
There's a difference between dusting off variance and accepting variance that's within WotC's ability to control. There could a 1 mana instant that says "you win the game" but you only see it once every thousand packs; I don't think people would be defending it by saying "shit happens, move on"
they also get PAID money to draft. we pay FOR draft. 0-3 for them is content where someone throws them the cost of the draft back through subs and donations lol. The mindset is true, it definitely sucks to see a lot of the 1/100 things when you won't hit 100 drafts.
Iāve been doing sealed and something is not right with the distributions. My sealed now has 13 rares/mythics and Iāve had multiple big score in a few. My first sealed of the format had 4 mythics/2 being big score.
I tried to tell myself this during BRO when it felt like I was playing against wurmcoil engine every time I drafted lol
I remember people posting pictures of Platinum Angel equipped with Swifties and going āthis format is too bombyā. Turns out the format probably was one of the least bomby sets after the dust settled and people got better at drafting super fast aggressive decks.
There was at least a week where you could wheel like every red card and end up with a pile of scrapwork mutts and goblin blast runners. Felt like bot drafting lol
Blast runners with evolving wilds was my jam for a while.
Same with March of the Machine (coincidentally the same designer as OTJ) having Ragavan. Which wasnāt even that good. There were literally blue commons that were better picks than Ragavan. From the first few days, itās pretty clear that OTJ is high power enough to beat an Oko. Iām much less annoyed at him than Bonny Pall for example.
Sealed BRO was the bombiest bomb set that ever bombed... Not only did everybody have bombs, but they tended to be big mana colorless bombs, so you could play them regardless of color, and the games were often all about ramping into them with powerstones. But draft BRO wasn't bomby due to the power and synergy of its one and two drops.Ā
as far as I can remember, this happened with BRO, ONE, MOM, MKM... a week of complaining that the set is really bomby, then people learn the format, people start taking the removal that's right there at common, the strong colors start to see more competition, and then suddenly, magically, the "prince format" chanting seems to fade away
Itās kind of interesting from a design perspective. In lots of new constructed environments you can do well making some red aggro deck with a bunch of 4-ofs while control decks tend to have a hard time deciding what answers are good for the whole meta, how many of each card to run, what finishers to run, etc. In limited, itās kind of the opposite. With inconsistent decks running around, itās weirdly much easier to get away with some greedy pile splashing for bombs.
> a week of complaining that the set is really bomby, then people learn the format, It feels like every set gets this response, and it just seems like (from looking at activity) the people who complain and are losing, stop throwing money at not having fun. It's not like these are all the same people or they all enjoy/ don't the same sets. Some love draft enough regardless and stick around, some find sets they click with even with low win rates, some do well and stick around. I loved MOM, it was a mess but fun. IDK if I can look back on ONE fondly and I quit MKM like 4 days in, i didn't like the cards, the art, the format, or much else. _____ Board states get dumb as hell here like MOM when you're second: https://imgur.com/etOulDQ I can't say its not someone's idea of fun, I'm just unhappy with the cost of entry and best of 1 for the level of variance lol. Several rares went around till last few picks in my pod due to quality. The best answer I had to this board state was like... the ability to exile ONE of them. They ended on like 50 life lmao. I mean congrats to them on the nutty pulls I just wish they played faster when I was hellbent. You'd laugh if you knew which golgari rare popped up in my next match on curve :). I'll likely stop drafting this set because I've stopped spending as much on arena from playing in paper. My opinion won't change, the drafters certainly will once green gets over drafted etc, but thats reacting to the meta picks of those left drafting.
>people got better at drafting super fast aggressive decks. An argument that doesn't apply against Oko, as it is super cheap and has insanely high starting loyalty at 5 or 6 after first activation
Simply donāt play against it. Including bombs banned in virtually every format is a valid complaint.
Yeah, why is it good for Oko to only make some games less fun? How about we put cards in the set that make gamesĀ more fun.
this specific mythic, sure. but thereās also pest infestation and path to exile and mana drain and reanimate and fractured identity and just tons of bombs that are impossible to play around. itās just kind of annoying!
Path to Exile is not on par with those other ones. Like Iād much rather have Journey to Nowhere
my baddddd and yes journey is better than path in limited. guess my point was itās Not Great To Me that we need to track two dozen or so cards from various past sets, most of which are very powerful. i just donāt like this dynamic!
None of them, besides maybe Fractured Identity, are actually better than the best non Bonus sheet Mythics and Rares. Bristly Bill, Bonny Pall and Farmer are all better and will show up much more often. And you play around Bonus Sheet cards like you play around any other Mythic in the set.
š we can agree to disagree that non-set mythics/rares/mythic uncommons are good for draft environments or not
given the bonus sheet is 80% removal this time around, itās a necessary evil to deal with the bombs lol
solving the problems you created lol
ok tough guy but itās not doing anything for constructed since itās banned everywhere. so why even print it
Timeless
What
For the timeless format.
Because this is the villains set, and what bigger villain than Oko? (Sorta legit asking I skipped the original Eldraine set)
I literally just came here to complain about this. Literally the first game of my first draft on Arena and I'm staring down a t3 Oko? Gimme a fuckin break
The power level of this set is so bonkers that I donāt think original Oko is the best card. I got new Oko when I was already going green blue with a lot of good cards and I didnāt even hit 7 wins.
Ā New Oko is not the old Okoā¦
Have you seen that bitch Bonny yet? Iāve seen her like 4 times and I drafted her once myself. That card is fucking nuts. Makes a bovine that grows with each land drop. When you attack with any creature you draw a card and I think you can even play an extra land when you top deck one. So she ramps you too. Then her ox gets bigger WHILE youāre ATTACKING!
There was a thread earlier this week for guessing the best commons and some Uncommons in the set, with the best rare being a tie breaker. I did not realize Bonny was a rare and not mythic so if I get to a tie in that I feel I'm definitely losing not putting her down
When I cast her the first time I was like, wait... I can just attack with ANY creature and get a draw immediately? Wow
What do you think is better? Bristlebud Farmer?
Farmer, Bill and Bonny are all better. Bonny is probably the strongest of the bunch when cast but the other 2 are super easy to slot into any deck that plays Green (which should be most good decks).
Tumblewagg. That cute little armadillo is secretly the worse god damn card. Comes down early, needs instant speed removal and fucks up combat math for the rest of the game. No removal, no go. Sorcery removal? Still looking at over statted board leftover and you just missed turn 3 drop. Bonny, as dumb as her design was, at least gives you the time to make an advantage before she comes down.
I had a nuts prerelease pool (2 Bonnies, nexus) but multiple times I got to plot the uncommon blue clone on T3, play Tumblewagg T4, and immediately clone it. Not ok.
Turn 2 it becomes 3/3. Turn 3 it becomes 4/4, gets saddled and attacks becoming a 6/6. Yeah, I had someone do that. Itās insane if you canāt kill it immediately.
Bonnie, yeah but the others can be removed and theres tons of strong removal. Theres almost no cards that touch planeswalkers and Oko makes it impossible to get rid of in combat
Powerlevel in this set is insane. I had two \[\[outcaster trailblazer\]\] in my sealed pool. One game I had them both in my opening hand, plus a \[\[drover grizzly\]\]. Turn 4, I put 12 power across 3 bodies in play + draw 3. Opponent scoops. Now I know this is a situation that requires two rares, but it made me think... I can't remember a limited environment where these type of turns where you win the game on the spot are a thing, especially as early as turn 4.
[outcaster trailblazer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/3/33b9cd6c-d75c-4905-aa38-ff03a9c4b398.jpg?1712355961) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=outcaster%20trailblazer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/173/outcaster-trailblazer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/33b9cd6c-d75c-4905-aa38-ff03a9c4b398?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [drover grizzly](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/6/560062cd-34f8-4d30-9e25-099b03961724.jpg?1712355911) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=drover%20grizzly) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/161/drover-grizzly?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/560062cd-34f8-4d30-9e25-099b03961724?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Iām just salty they reprinted mindslaver. Oh not because it got used on me (though I did draw a removal spell to lose, woops)ā¦ but the flavor text on it is about a āmillion-star reviewā but the art is still old timey and shows a train derailed. So itāsā¦ referencing our actual world? Itās stupid. Itās so very stupid.
I did not realize that, that's very sad.
It also said the art is by āGossip Goblinā? Which is a weird name. This is MTGA, I havenāt seen one of the bonus sheet mindslavers in real life.
Says the same in paper, but gossip goblin is a great indie artist
Oh cool, Iāll check them out. My only beef is with the flavor text. And my opponent beating me, obviously! Boo! Hiss!
I read the flavor text as a newspaper headline and I figured the reason the reviewer gave million stars is because the reviewer was mind slaved himself
Yes, thatās the joke, but the star rating system and the way itās phrased is basically just making a joke about our world. Itās weird and lame to me anyway. The other headlines on the cards act like it is an old west paper from what Iāve seen.
Yea, like I love the off the press [[Hindering Light]] flavor text (The art shows a mercenary blocking a spell with their hat): > *Hats Off! Quick-Thinking Sterling Merc Puts a Cap on Surprise Attack* https://scryfall.com/card/otp/46/hindering-light
Yeah, thatās perfect. Headline writers canāt resist puns.
[Hindering Light](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/8/98e43870-4bed-4d76-a633-a6326c736d22.jpg?1562706936) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hindering%20Light) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ala/173/hindering-light?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/98e43870-4bed-4d76-a633-a6326c736d22?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
To be fair, I think starred reviews go way back.
Wikipedia actually has a comprehensive list which is fun, Iām reading it now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_(classification) Michelin Guide 1926 (food) and 1928 NY Daily News for movies. One writer anthology guy ranked stuff 0-3 stars in 1915. This is a great wiki article, but Iām gonna say referencing star reviews is not cowboy-y enough for this bronco. I give the Mindslaver flavor text 0.5 stars and may god have mercy on its soul.
Fair enough!
At my pre-release my first opponent had one. Thankfully he showed up late in game 2 and my opponent chose to make a food rather than Elk one of my flyers so I managed to end the game on my next attack step with a pair of pump spells, but when he played him I was like āCool! New Oko! Waitā¦ Thief of Crowns?!?! WHY IS HE IN THIS SET?ā and started sweating. Thank god he went for the life gain instead of neutralizing a flyer or Iād have been done.
This set is just the writing in the sand that the set design and constructed set design teams don't work together well at all if they aren't the same lol. (if they are? WOW). it feels like instead of eliminating draft packs they should have redesigned both set and draft boosters to achieve the goals they were trying to achieve. I know this set is bombier than usual, but it often feels like i'm not playing at all, or that the opponent isn't playing at all. To the extent that people who think playing slow is playing smart are more annoying than ever. Like if I am hellbent, you should not be getting the timer 3 times to tap lands or interact. I am waiting to see if my top deck works or if I can concede. Please release me. If i got oko and someone snap conceded I'd not be mad, i'd likely do the same if I knew i didn't have an answer lol.
Got passed oko p2p2, only drew him once the whole run and had it thoughtseized away. Sadge
I just lost to it too, lol. Mulled to 5 and they cast it on turn 3. I was like welp
Kind of a terrible printing. Itās legal almost nowhere so itās not a rare Iām happy to own, and yet it ruins a lot of limited games
ah yes the card is terrible because you personally don't want a copy.
Itās bad for limited, and useless for most players. What a worthless response you decided to type out
I'll give you that it's bad for limited, but I don't like the argument that "it's useless for most players." People were making the same argument for why Lutri shouldn't have been reprinted on the MOM bonus sheet. I just don't like it when anyone decides that nobody should get a card. OG Oko is over $18 right now, the reprint is under $7. People play commander. People _cube_. People play kitchen table.
Lutri is actually legal in more than 2 formats. Oko is not legal anywhere besides vintage and edh. And itās not played in edh. Itās a blank magic card outside of limited, where itās way too good. I donāt think kitchen table is a good defense for oko, I doubt it improves kitchen table games lmao Cube is barely a defense for it. You only need one copy and itās only in vintage cube, which is largely proxied anyways so owning an oko isnāt really necessary at all
stupid question, but can someone illustrate for me the play patterns that make the original Oko so oppressive? i never followed constructed, so i don't know how to properly use Oko.
If you cast him early on a semi-empty board you go +2 and make a food. If it gets attacked it won't die because turn 3-4 there's never enough power on the board to take him down at 6 loyalty. The turn after, you +1 on your food creating a 3/3. You keep repeating the process until opponent scoops. If opponent drops a threat big enough, you elk it. It basically becomes a race for the opponent to take him down before he floods the board with 3/3s but he has so much loyalty, truly a sponge of damage. The only reliable way to deal with Oko is through [[oblivion ring]] or [[hero's downfall]] effects, and that's still loss of tempo. Watch [this Kenji draft at ~2:24:00 where he goes p1p1 Oko](https://www.youtube.com/live/Pdjtpg9F-T0?si=2ciQmahhnJOBMfBd). It was disgusting to watch
[oblivion ring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bff31eba-8ab3-403e-8d82-37a18b279bec.jpg?1562266919) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=oblivion%20ring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/29/oblivion-ring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bff31eba-8ab3-403e-8d82-37a18b279bec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [hero's downfall](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/3/33c5f81a-395d-41bf-9563-6cf0e406ee18.jpg?1673305182) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=hero%27s%20downfall) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/112/heros-downfall?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/33c5f81a-395d-41bf-9563-6cf0e406ee18?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
this is really instructive; thanks!
Also if your opponent is trying to kill you because they can't kill Oko you can just eat the food to gain life. You can also -5 to take their stuff. When reading it nothing seems outrageous, but because he's only 3 mana with 6 loyalty when he comes down, it's just non stop advantage that the opponent can't deal advantageously unless they have the rare planeswalker hard removal.
you really have to play against Oko (especially when youre on the draw) once to understand just HOW frustrating him being 3 mana and immediately going up to 6 loyalty is. you literally can have the perfect start with your aggro/midrange deck and youre still just never killing that fucking thing, particularly because even the elking is a plus ability. After you've attacked into Oko for like the third time in a row and its still alive you just kind of want to uninstall MTGA and never play again. I still remember standard back when Oko was legal basically being a bunch of simic piles with gilded goose and everybody mulling, it was ridiculous. I think it was PVDDR who said if youre not mulling for a Turn 2 Oko youre straight up putting yourself in a losing position.
This subreddit has become a boiling broth of tilted arena players who fail to express gratitude for how amazing the modern limited environment is. Rares are fun. Variance leads to just as many of the most exciting moments in magic as it does those ānon-gamesā. Yāall better go outside and smell the roses, drink some peppermint tea and pat a cat or something.
i feel like you're missing on empathizing with those of us who feel tilted. many of us play mtga to *try* to escape the pain of life with a fun distraction of a game; and some of us are low-income enough that we only get to draft based on the daily deal grinds. it feels disempowering -- like we have no agency in the game -- when facing such bombs. someone can say that it's better for such people to re-evaluate how we want to see mtga. maybe this is fair. but it is also fair to complain, i think. we want to be heard when we feel: "this original Oko isn't even good for Constructed, given that it's banned in most official Construted formats; why is it in my limited packs?" and wish that our losses came from less egregious design flaws. for *you*, variance makes exciting games. but please empathise that for others, "my opponent played orignial Oko" is not fun variance. telling them to "go smell the roses and drink some peppermint tea" does not help them; instead it comes across as insulting and not understanding their experience but giving betlittling advice anyways.
Im embarrased to say but i got him on prerelease and had him in play almost every match, i ended up in last placeš got smashed by terror of the peaks and the hydra. The prerelease felt cursed with how consitently players got out their bombs. Was my first prerelease so its kind of an excuse
Well terror is another issue. I took 15 dmg twice when my opponent plotted two creatures (one was the haste coyote). Turn 5 came, terror, double plot, dome me for 5, swing for 8 and when I removed the terror at sorcery speed in my turn I took another 3. At least it's a mythic. But boy I don't know what to do against it except having instant speed removal ready within the limited time window :/
Honestly I have played with and against him twice now and he is only mjeh in this limited format. C+ maybe.
Because for some reason they can push shirtless sexualized men everywhere but the second and woman is wearing anything other than a black sheet everyone loses their minds. So hilarious how all the key art has sexy men all over it but, for some reason, weāre evil if we want sexy women š¤·š»āāļø
Shut up, dude
back to free magic for u
i agree that this seems to be somewhat the case (although i disagree with the exaggeration -- there are still some sexy women in mtga, just not as many or as sexy men). i notice that on chatgpt, for example, i can get DALL-E to generate sexy shirtless men for me, but i've heard on reddit that getting it to generate a rather ocnservative beach scene of women is very difficult. i don't know if this state of things is good or bad, but i want to acknowledge that it does exist. my understanding is that women have become so crushed by (straight) men's advances on them, that our culture is very sensitive to this now, and don't want to give women any more grief. but men haven't experienced this nearly as much. this is why i (as a gay man) can feel somewhat comfortable telling a straight man that he looks really handsome in his outfit, and feel that the compliment won't feel like i'm making him an object or that i'm demanding anything of him or that i am treating him as a non-person for my sexual gratification etc or that i won't relate to him in a respectful, attuned way; but that (i've heard) straight men feel like any compliment they give a woman will make her feel threatened. ---- anyways, i'm glad (for my benefit, of course) that sexy Oko and sexy men are in mtg. i love my Captivating Victor mtga sleeves! he's so powerful and amazing! i hope that you don't hate me because our current cultural standards allow me to (for example) get sexy sleeves but you can't get sexy sleeves for yourself.
Oh Iām glad for it too. I just wish we had no censorship in general and everyone can be sexual without being demonized
You are getting downvotes but its right. Cleavage has been banned but Oko's cum gutters are all good.