Astral Set: still useful?

[0rion79]

Hello
I want to share one of my demi-crazy thoughts. Since the global game quality has reached much higher levels than the original Microprose Game, I would like to know if the community would like to apply a revision to the original Astral cards.
I mean, they are not "real" Magic the Gathering cards, so I think we could or remove them or do with them whatever we want.
Imho, the only good ones left are Aswan Jaguar, that is really a pain in the butt for tribe decks, and Fairy Dragon, that I like to use in combo with 2 Scion of Oona, since the Shroud Effect will prevent any negative random effect to affect own creatures.

Still....
Call from the Grave isn't that good and deals damage to the caster too
Prismatic Dragon has an useless ability and a terrible powe/defense ratio if compared to its casting cost
Rainbow Knights are a bad copy of Order of Leightbur & co;
Pandora's Box just is ugly
Whimsy is funny but not competitive
Goblin Polka Band can't be used in tribe decks since its ability is worst on goblins
Power Struggle is a card that I hate and that just negates player's skills during the game.
Orcish Catapult is less effective than Earthquake and not risolutive
Gem Bazaar can be cute now that there is no longer mana burna anymore but is still much less powerful than any land as Gemstone Mine or City of Brass.
Necropolis of Azar would be more cool if it would produce non-random tokens, even better if of Zombie kind.

With a bit of immagination...
860 Call from the Grave: Sorcery Put a creature from any graveyard into play under your control. Resurrected creature gains Fading X, where X is equal to its casting cost.
861 Prismatic Dragon Creature - Dragon 3/4 with 2WW - Flying\n |2: Prismatic Dragon becomes of the color of your choice permanently. |2: Target creature becomes of a color of your choice until the end of turn.
862 Rainbow Knights Creature - Human Knight When Rainbow Knights comes into play, choose a land under opponent's controll: Rainbow Knight gets protection from ONE of the colors related to the kind of mana that the chosen land may produce. If the land produces colorless mana, you may chose "protection from Artifacts".\n|W: First strike until end of turn.\n |1|W|W: +1/+0 until end of turn.
863 Pandora's Box Artifact |3, |T: Choose a random creature card from any player's library: put a token creature into play under your controll and treat it as though an exact copy of the chosen creature card were just played.
864 Whimsy Sorcery Play X fast effects, where: 1 = Fountain of Youth, 2 is 1+ Jaulm Tome, 3 is 1+2+ Searing Touch (and so on)..
865 Faerie Dragon Creature - Faerie Dragon Flying\n|1|G|G: choose one: Play a random effect on opponent's creatures randomly chosen among (X,Y, and Z) or among your own creatures randomly chosen among (A, B, C).
866 Goblin Polka Band Creature - Goblin |RR, |T, Pay |R for each target: Tap target non-wall, non-artifact creature. If a red creature is tapped in this way do not untap during their controllers' next two untap phases. If an Orc or Goblins is tapped in this way do not untap during their controllers' next two untap phases.
867 Power Struggle Sorcery Exchange the control of target artifact, creature, enchantment, planeswalker and land you control and of opponent's choice with target permanent of the same type that an opponent control, of your choice.
868 Aswan Jaguar Creature - Cat When Aswan Jaguar comes into play, choose a random creature type from those in target opponent's deck.\n|G|G, |T: Bury target creature of the chosen type.\n|3|G|G, chose a new random creature type.
869 Orcish Catapult Tribe Instant (orc) Target creature gets -0/-X until the end of turn. You may chose an additional target for each Orc you controll.
870 Gem Bazaar Land When Gem Bazaar comes into play, exile the top card of your library until when you find another land Card. .\n|T: Add to your mana pool one mana of the color produced by that land. Reshuffle the exiled cards into your library.
871 Necropolis of AzarEnchantment Whenever a non-artifact creature is put into any graveyard from play, put a husk counter on Necropolis of Azar.\n|3, Remove a husk counter from Necropolis of Azar: Put a Spawn of Azar token into play, that counts as a Skeleton Zombie. Treat this token as a black creature with power and toughness each equal to 1 + the number of counters on Necropolis of Azar, that has |H2swampwalk. (sort like Saproling Burst).

What do you think about? At least we could use them

[EviL_CLonE]

I agree. The game should be the closest to the real life game.

[Professor]

I'd put Rainbow Knights in the playable category, but other than it and the Jaguar, the rest of them are always going to be the worst card in your deck.

Revising the way they work, however, is as sacrilegious as changing Ancestral Recall to "Draw 4 cards" or making Counterspell cost U.

Dump them, maybe, but change them - nah.

[0rion79]

Well, Rainbow Knights are not that bad but their "protection from a random color" is often useless because rarely they match the colors inside opponent's deck. Also, you can't use their "pump" ability AFTER declaring blockers and attackers, since there is an high risk that they get +0/+0 and they die. Since we already have Order of Leithbur and Order of the White Shield, I think that they are totally useless as they are now, even if they are not so bad, but about changing... well, I respect your personal point of view, but since the Microprose cards are not "real" cards (never printed by Wizards of the Coast) I don't see it as a sacrilegious act as (I agree with you) it would be to change any of the official & true cards.

[Systral]

If it doesn't mess up Shandalar I'd say dump them and replace with better real cards.

[gmzombie]

thats the problem i think it will effect shand. Well i take that back. i think shand uses a different cards.dat file that is uneffected by our mod. and i think it even uses the old art in the game but im not sure. one thing is for sure though. if we could remove them we would have a few more slots for good cards in the game if someone can figure out how to code them in.

[0rion79]

Shandlar is the reason for which I was suggesting to change them rather to replace them. In the times of my old "creative" mod, I remember that playing shandlar with some cards from Unlimited replaced (as the life-gaining Rods or the Laces) had the only backdraw of having unproper card arts but their functioning was intact.
Actually, the Astral cards are used in the game for sure, as Whimsy inside some dungeon, but changing the card effects in the Duel mode won't affect Shandlar since the cards just share the art and MAYBE the CSV.
Also, if you have red the descriptions of my "ideal" Astral cards, they are very close to the original but without their randomness effects...

[McCrea]

I'd keep them exactly as they are. The following isn't necessarily information to support my opinion.

they do have 2 features others don't. which is 1) random effects and 2) the sounds.
Now, random effects probably is irrelevant, but the card sound could sure be fun.
"Ho ho ho ... Ha ha ha" is what I have always thought about Mircroprose's MTG over the past 10 years. No, I don't play Goblin Polka Band, but it is one of my favorite cards. None of the cards are outstanding, which is what makes them acceptable. They don't unbalance the game, which I assume is what they designers were going for. I see them as icons that make the game the game.

[0rion79]

Well, but we do use the sound. Eg, all of our pump knights actually do use those sound and even if we would remove (almost) all the Astral Cards, we won't loose the sound or the code.
Imho, I would relaly love to have some home-made cards, but if the whole community disagrees about that, I bet that we have only 2 options: or leave them where they are or totally remove them *IF* they don't interfere with Shandlar game.