Pointed Discussion

Awww.... great flavor in this cycle but the rare is overcosted and underpowered.

Top-down combo design. I love it!

This is not overcosted, it gets to fetch newts and has a decent sized butt. Newts that will act as kill spells when they die. and it can do this repeatedly.

Play in a deck without the Newt or Cauldron to draw your opponent's removal.

Between this cycle and Shadowborn Apostle, M14 has really given my Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker EDH deck some fun toys.

I get what they are trying to do, but I feel it will flop like the Empires combo they had back in M12 (Scepter of Empires, Crown of Empires, Throne of Empires). At least this thing tutors the pieces for you, but on the other hand what is this thing going to effectively block on turn 4?

I guess we're now waiting for a Macbeth legendary creature in Theros???

I wonder if this card was intended to teach new players that tutors are primarily in black's color pie. Who knows?

I hear this creature is making quite a stir.

If you pick this highly in a draft it's nice that you're likely to get the combo pieces for it. How many not-that-great-by-themselves Festering Newts and Bubbling Cauldrons do you have to play to make this thing good though?

This strikes me as a bit cartoony. Why not go all out and make an Enchanted Broom equipment card that gives her flying?

As I said with the Empires cycle in M12, I don't particularly like cards like this.

Half the fun of Magic is coming up with your own combos and interactions, but it's not fun if you just tell us which cards to use together. No one's going to say, "Oh, you used Bogbrew Witch with Festering Newt, wow that's pretty clever"

I'm glad they do this in core sets, so new players can get the hang of what "combo" is in a lighthearted non-Spike way. Someone above/below said they don't like it when the cards reference other cards by name, but that's absolutely essential for new players -- a new player will own, like, three to five packs of cards total, and they just literally do not know of that many cards. A card like this motivates them to go look up or find more cards, and encourages thinking more about finding cards that pair well together instead of evaluating each card's value in a vacuum. Learning to combo Spike style can only happen later, once you own more cards and get to know lots more cards and can start becoming more selective.

The M12 combo was too complicated and dry, and had kind of a distanced haughty mood to it, but this new combo for M14 is fun and funny and silly and richly flavorful... and was surprisingly potent in the prerelease tournament. It's a win.

First:

The Yu-Gi-Oh!/Exodia comparison, and the Empires Artifacts:

I think that Duelist Kingdom Yu-Gi-Oh! basically made a great cartoon and a lousy card game, because (well besides having literally no rules...Duelist Kingdom was to Yu-Gi-Oh! as pre-6th Edition was to MAGIC)....way too many card interactions seemed to be determinant on having exactly specific cards named by each other. I am a Vorthos, and let me tell you, if you try to be a Yu-Gi-Oh!-Vorthos-Purist and make decks just like the Flavor as seen on the old show.....you end up crying a lot.

BUT! I DO like just a little bit of this, here and there. I think that MAGIC is in dangerous Design territory here, but I also think MAGIC's ability to take risks is it's greatest strength. You'll note that trying to build a deck that depends on certain EXACT specific cards is a lot worse than building a "loosely themed" deck where you do want to find a type of card, but you have very many cards that can stand in each other's place. It is the difference between Needing Draw, and Needing Tutor, and when all you need is Draw, your deck is more likely to have 'lasting play value', -i.e., 'Replayability', but if your Combo is so difficult that your deck is not even worth building unless you use a lot of Tutors...then it's going to be a One-Trick Pony.

GlassJoetheChamp: that is what a strictly Johnny player would say. Outside of any other context, let's say these cards didn't have names that had any meaning to us. Let's say they only had ID Numbers. OK, then you'd be spot-on, exactly, right. But that is what an Only Johnny says.


I...am Johnny-Vorthos. Which leads me to my next point.

VORTHOS.

Second: The MACBETH comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMzrgXFeX_o

that is all X3 I LOVE THIS CYCLE! :p

Five.

Hundred.

Stars.

no seriously, I think Bogbrew Witch should have been in Alpha. Whether it's good for the whole game or not, you can tell that a card is at least worthy of the Core Set when you think "MAN! that card should have been in ALPHA!" (The Titans are good examples of cards that are kinda bad for the game that also should totally have been Alpha. =) While Combos do want to try to be as free to be creative as possible, it IS acceptable to throw this mildly out the window (....not too hard? XD) for the sake of Flavor. WAY MORE THAN ANYTHING-

The Flavor here REALLY, HONESTLY justifies other quibbles you could have with the cards. The flavor is frankly so much beyond 'Fantastic' that I do not have a word for how awesome it is.

Nirvava: this inspired me to make a card for next year <3

Magic Wand 1

Artifact- Equipment

When Magic Wand enters the battlefield, you may search your library for a Wizard creature and reveal it. Shuffle your library, the put the revealed creature on top.

Equipped creature has "T: this creature deals 1 damage to target creature or player."

If equipped creature is a Wizard, it has: "T: this creature deals 1 damage to target creature and 1 damage to target player"

Equip 2
"The Wand chooses the Wizard"

Nimbus 2015 4

Artifact- Equipment

If you control a Wizard equipped with a Magic Wand, you may search your library for a Nimbus 2015 and cast it without paying its mana cost.

Equipped creature has flying.

Whenever a Wizard enters the battlefield, you may attach Nimbus 2015 to it.

Equip 3
"ACCIO NIMBUS!"

Love the design, but this whole combo just seems way to slow and way too janky to really pull off in competitive play. Some very happy person will pull it off in Limited, and you can expect to see it at many FNMs for a while, sure. It's fun, and for flavor alone, I think it deserves a middle-of-the-road rating.

I like the design. But for constructed it's simply far too slow and expensive.

This feels incredible forced. Boo.

@ Flavor Text
Well, not really since you can just tutor for them.

All I'm willing to say about this is the following: I'm REALLY depending on Commander 2013, Theros Block and FTV: 20 to get the bitter taste out of my mouth.

Should have been a hag. :(

Wizards missed the opportunity of a lifetime: this could've been a Hag.

Would have been way better if you could search your graveyard for the newts

Honestly, I love this thing. Call me a noob, whatever, I don't care, this thing is fun. And when this thing hits the board, your opponent is gonna have to do something about it if he doesn't wanna lose a bunch of life and creatures. I play a deck where most of my stuff costs three mana, so if I cast her on turn 4, I'm still able to to drop my Fiendslayer Paladin next turn while also being able to bring in the cauldron.

And I feel the other two cards can do some good on their own. The Festering Newt, while out alone is still a Festering Goblin.

As for the cauldron, I've learned to enjoy it for that slight bit of defense I enjoy. Gonna kill one of my creatures? Alright, I'll gain four life. And it combos just perfectly with Angelic Accord in a deck where life gain is already a thing.

I don't know, I can talk about this all day, I had thought it was gonna get taken out of my standard black white deck, but now that I've picked up my second witch, I don't think I'll be able to drop them so easily. Plus, she blocks a lot of good early drops that you haven't been able to deal with yet.

Honestly not sure how anyone could think this was appropriately costed. Play a 4 drop that does little to alter the board state when it comes out. A turn later you can tap it and pay 2 mana to get a 1 drop that gives -1/-1 when it dies. You can only have up to 4 of those 1 drops that aren't worth tutoring for in the first place, the tutor ability is too costly and the creature's stats themselves suck. This isn't good in any format, including limited, and casual.

On one hand i'm a sucker for those "preconstructed", card name based combo cards.
On the other hand, i'm disappointed when they turn out more mediocre than they need to be.
Especially because these cards seem the most fun in constructed.

It's not as bad as the Empire cycle from M12 Sonserf369 mentioned, but still forgettable.

The ability is perfectly fine, and you'll often use it so P/T isn't that important - but the toughness is still susceptible for burn spells, and with just 1 power you won't ever use her for combat either.
For this would have worked much smoother - her ability and the cauldron costs two, while the newt and activating the cauldron costs one mana. Provides a much nicer mana curve from just the combo pieces alone.

If you open one in your first pack, you just pick her, knowing that all Newts and Cauldrons will just come back to you.
Onedrops, Lifegain, Removal, what else do you need?

In a proper lifegain deck with cards like Elixir of Immortalityand Angelic Accord You can't go wrong with this card.

Why are people rating instant-speed repeatable card advantage for {2} at 2.5?

4 Newts, 3 of her, 1 cauldron and you have
-a nice 1 drop
-tutorable card-advantage repeatable removal
-life-gain + indirect life-loss
-all at instant speed.
-a tutorable sac outlet
-tutorable chumps
-a 1/3 allowing for you to hold off weenies.
-for 8 deckslots and no other dedication/synergy

4/5 in casual IMO, especially multiplayer where instant speed and resilience means a lot.

Wraique, you're crazy, newt is great and Cauldron is not bad even without newt. Leave one mana open and your opponent won't really like using their removal. Turns chump blocks into 4 life for you. Even without witch you can play those cards. Witch pulls it all together.

Combos with Bubbling Cauldron and Festering Newt.

@SyntheticDreamer I second that this should have been a Hag and should still be errataed into one. Those saggy hag boobies are epic!
Also: I think I will make a silly deck for Halloween and include this trio. It should be fun ;)

Sacrificing a Newt to the Cauldron with a Witch in play will result in a creature getting -4/-4 until end of turn, each opponent losing 4 life and the caster gaining life equal to the amount lost by all opponents.

I feel like this is a missed opportunity to bring back the creature type Hag.

Anyone else getting the feeling that Eric Deschamps has watched The Dark Crystal recently?