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sigh

sigh

I don't think 3 casts is the right metric to weigh it against. Do we expect that of any other creature?

I've had ruinator played in my cube in a UW tempo deck that otherwise had little to specifically do with the GY, and it ran perfectly fine. If I remember they got two casts off it in one of the games against me.

Add in any GY shenanigans (which my cube has a lot of), and it can rumble in lots of deck easily; and yeah the 3 CMC reanimate/search/etc cards are real fun with it.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

Yeah, I think I'd be perfectly happy with a 5/6 flyer for {1}{U}{U} that I milled over or looted away at some point earlier in the game.

It's in a similar boat to Roar of the Wurm for me — casting the "front half" is kinda meh (you're not casting it on T3 unless you've put effort into stocking your graveyard), but casting it from the graveyard is just gas.
 
shamizy

shamizy

The idea of Skaab Ruinator is usually MUCH better than the actual card in practice. You imagine being able to recast it for additional value and outvalue your opponent turning dead creatures into a resource, getting in there with a beefy 5/6 and push the advantage, but in reality this just gets stuck in your hand because you've only got 2 creatures in the graveyard or you get to cast it late in the game only to eat a removal spell. As safra mentioned the more small cheat-y stuff you have the better it is. Especially when featured in a format that is heavily graveyard dependent with lots of looting and pitching cards to the grave. But even then I'm not sure if it's a good card or really worth jumping through those hoops. In the typical cube? I don't think it really works. I think I cut it way back in 2015 and have never wanted to revisit it.
 
Brad

Brad

Even The Black Cube hasn't liked it. Your format needs to be in a weird place to be slow enough for Ruinator to be decent, but not too slow where a recastable dragon can cause problems.
 
sigh

sigh

You don't lose any more than any other three drop creature, unless those creatures it exiled were an opportunity cost for some other effect and/or it's literally the only option left for you to cast. It's only a three drop, yet it's being treated like it's the decks lynch pin. It's a three drop. The deck can just move on and cast their four drop if it's unsummoned.

And the question was why THREE casts
 
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inscho

inscho

Ruinator was pretty strong in my cube when removal was worse. It wasn’t all that difficult to cast on curve either. Of course, if Ruinator would be good in any environment it would be in my cube. I cut it pretty recently.

There’s been a ton of recursive creatures printed since innistrad and Ruinator feels a little less unique and is increasingly outclassed. For instance, Phoenix of Ash is just so much better as a recursive evasive beater. The thing Ruinator had going for it most was anchoring dredge decks in blue. But I’m fine with blue being more of a facilitator than an anchor
 
Rusje

Rusje

sigh said:
You don't lose any more than any other three drop creature, unless those creatures it exiled were an opportunity cost for some other effect and/or it's literally the only option left for you to cast. It's only a three drop, yet it's being treated like it's the decks lynch pin. It's a three drop. The deck can just move on and cast their four drop if it's unsummoned.

And the question was why THREE casts
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That is not true. Skaab costs more than a regular three drop. Namely, it makes it harder to cast again as opposed to a normal 3 mana.
It is mana wise cheap, very strong, and recursive, but it has quite an additional cost. Yes you can move on to cast another 3 or 4 drop, but on a normal creature you could cast also that one again. (Normal creatures are nowhere near the power of the skaab)
 
sigh

sigh

Yeah of course it has conditions. But "having conditions to cast again" isn't "lose the game". Unless, like I said, it's literally the only thing you've got after the bounce. But in that case murder is just as potentially game-ending, and unlike the vast majority of other creatures the ruinator can actually be cast again after murder depending on GY state (which is the far more common removal case anyways)

Like don't we run, I dunno, an average of maybe 2.5 bounce spells in cubes these days or something. All of which are probably blue, so might be in the deck with ruinator anyways (especially considering they are usually creatures themselves at this point).

It's a three drop. Just seems like finding reasons to hate on it at this point.
 
Rusje

Rusje

sigh said:
Yeah of course it has conditions. But "having conditions to cast again" isn't "lose the game". Unless, like I said, it's literally the only thing you've got after the bounce. But in that case murder is just as potentially game-ending, and unlike the vast majority of other creatures the ruinator can actually be cast again after murder depending on GY state (which is the far more common removal case anyways)

Like don't we run, I dunno, an average of maybe 2.5 bounce spells in cubes these days or something. All of which are probably blue, so might be in the deck with ruinator anyways (especially considering they are usually creatures themselves at this point).

It's a three drop. Just seems like finding reasons to hate on it at this point.
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No, I love it. It is balanced. It is way too strong for 3 mana, but it does not cost only 3 mana. That is the point. The conditions are such that you often can only cast it later, similarly to a rancor. That one cost one, but it is very unlikely that you can play it on turn one.
Ruinator is balanced, fun, and great, but not a three drop for me.
 
sigh

sigh

Yeah I'm more talking about the game role. It does not play the role of a top-end archetype finisher*. It is not the Titanoth Rex of the reanimator deck. It's a three mana role-player that is very sticky. I don't think it's fair to evaluate it like it has to be cast multiple times and stay in play for the value of the 1UU 5/6 flier to be "worth" it. Because we don't expect that from Knight of the Reliquary, or like [Insert Tombstalker of the week], or honestly any other three mana creature.

If it's cast once and removed, it is functionally the same in many cases as losing any other three drop from the board state in the same manner. It's not somehow a 4 for 1 unless you were silly enough to exile three critical GY pieces on the cast (and still not an actual 4:1 in that case).

To be clear I agree this doesn't belong in fast environments. This should stay a firm furlong away from Blacksmithy. But like yeah. Same caveats exist for literally any other card. If there's any arguments I'm totally on board with it's inschos "other better options are here now". Yeah ok, fair enough. I'm perennially years behind on new card inclusions. But it's not like somehow this critically fragile chess queen. It's just a three mana beater.


*That's not to say you can't build a deck completely focused around finding, casting, recasting, and fueling a ruinator. You can definitely dream up that type of deck. But in that case isn't that an argument for it? That someone could potentially want to draft their little unique protect the queen deck around it?
 
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B

blacksmithy

Skaab Ruinator is a member of that multitudinous choir of great designs that needs a little extra dev to hang with the King of Monkey Pirates… ofc when i think through giving it the extra dev, i end up with something that’s basically Murktide Regent…
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Not to mention that Ruinator will also be cast as an 'extra' threat from the GY while demanding their best removal spell. I'm happy with that exchange when I cast it the first time and don't need to cast it a second.

It's going to be bad in most Cubes (most blue sections lean much more towards Murktide Regent and friends than this and that's probably a choice you have to make) and even when it's good it will often rot in packs but it's a cool card with high upside, idk
 
japahn

japahn



How good is Karn? Two upticks not affecting the board lead into a sometimes game winning ultimate. Two downticks is double Vindicate which is great, but seems reasonable for 7 mana. Is he just a control finisher? How good a ramo target is he.
 
Karshtakavaar

Karshtakavaar

Kinda underwhelming tbh? At least in my experience in limited. He's way harder to cheat out than say, a Myr Battlesphere, and way easier to answer. He's not as immediately crippling as a Sundering Titan and I don't think anyone plays that anymore (Even though its way better with all the Triomes and other duals around the place now). And if I'm going to pick a nonartifact colourless card as a cheat target during a draft, I'd take an Eldrazi as it goes in more stuff (Sneak attack, reanimator, ramp). He's iconic and I love him but I wouldn't draft him.
 
B

blacksmithy

if the cube has Tron or Post or Channel or Shops supported, i want him for that, i think. if the big mana/cheat deck is instead Elves or Sneak/Show or Natural Order or whatever else makes a bunch of colored mana, he’s much less desirable because the colored threats are just better
 
ravnic

ravnic



Do people put this card into their proactive decks with creatures? Or is it just a weird wrath?
If one would be interested in 5-mana wrath's, is this a more flexible option or just another option?
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
ravnic said:


Do people put this card into their proactive decks with creatures? Or is it just a weird wrath?
If one would be interested in 5-mana wrath's, is this a more flexible option or just another option?
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Yes! This is one of my favorite wraths. In a control deck you just choose 13 and destroy everything, but in a more proactive creature deck, you can actually make it so your Wrath keeps around your strongest creatures if your opponent has more less fewer.

I would love a variant where you can first choose whether the chosen creatures are sacrificed, or everything else is sacrificed, though.
 
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B

blacksmithy

ravnic said:


Do people put this card into their proactive decks with creatures? Or is it just a weird wrath?
If one would be interested in 5-mana wrath's, is this a more flexible option or just another option?
Click to expand...
if i allowed 5-mana wraths, i would run this one probably before any others. exactly what @Onderzeeboot said about breaking parity with it is what makes it so cool. it’s like Wildfire but actually kinda good
 
ravnic

ravnic

If your opponent has more? @Onder?

What I thought was, that you'd go wide and when your seven creatures are facing your opponent's three, you'd chose 3 and swing for a bunch with you biggest threats.

Kinda like wildfire makes my heart go faster.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

ravnic said:
If your opponent has more? @Onder?

What I thought was, that you'd go wide and when your seven creatures are facing your opponent's three, you'd chose 3 and swing for a bunch with you biggest threats.
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That's exactly how it plays! If you happen to be in a situation where your opponent has a wider board than you, it's totally possible to just blow up everything and still come out ahead. You would just save that specific use case for when you're losing.

It's pretty rare someone will have more than 13 creatures out (I think the only time I've seen that happen in Cube in the past two years was in a GBx midrange mirror where one person had Whisperwood Elemental and Primordial Mist while the other person had Garruk, Cursed Huntsman), so you don't have to worry about By Invitation Only not blowing up the world when necessary. 13 creatures is almost always enough.
 
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