Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

Brad said:

Are these bad? Mastery is a C+ in TDM. I feel like they look decent to stop an early threat without being overly disruptive to an Eldrazi Titan.
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I've recently seen some very new Cubers put Ringing Strike Mastery alongside what would otherwise be considered Vintage-level removal, and I've come to think of them as very savvy. It's not too far off from Swift Reconfiguration besides the flash, which is a pretty big difference, sure, but that's not an unreasonable downgrade to get on a blue version of creature removal. I agree @ravnic that it's a C-level card at best still, but the fact that it can be a C both in its retail draft environment and in pretty much any Cube you throw it in is both fascinating and true.

The biggest issue with Ringing Strike Mastery is the same issue with Swift Reconfiguration -- the card still has its abilities in the meantime, too. While ETB and attack triggers are the most pernicious parts of most creatures in modern magic, there's little value in using a card just to lock down someone's Suki, Courageous Rescuer.



I personally prefer Sleep Magic, which makes the "out" quite a bit harder, or the Witness Protection/Unable to Scream duo. I don't like the "face-up" text of Unable to Scream, but I do prefer it to Witness Protection otherwise.

I think the cards get much more meaningful at 2 mana, but then you have to ask yourself why you really need these effects in blue, instead of asking your blue players to use other colors if they want to do a creature removal. That said, I think these cards are all pretty good and Cubeable/scale to the environment well in most lists short of Vintage power-level:



(I'd never Cube Fresh Start for a similar reason many others would never Cube one of my favorite UB cards, Kylie Minogue)

Also Bubble Snare is cool, I played that card for a good few months IIRC.
 
Seeker

Seeker

MilesOfficial said:
I've recently seen some very new Cubers put Ringing Strike Mastery alongside what would otherwise be considered Vintage-level removal, and I've come to think of them as very savvy. It's not too far off from Swift Reconfiguration besides the flash, which is a pretty big difference, sure, but that's not an unreasonable downgrade to get on a blue version of creature removal. I agree @ravnic that it's a C-level card at best still, but the fact that it can be a C both in its retail draft environment and in pretty much any Cube you throw it in is both fascinating and true.
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also you can put it on A-Vivi Ornitier and go infinite

this is only appealing in the context of "an online cube that already has Vivi in it" but...
 
ravnic

ravnic

I like blue auras that turn creatures into dinky little things. Unable to Scream and Eaten by Piranhas might be my favorites. I wish this one was just a tiny bit better:

 
Brad

Brad

I like the ones that let the Eldrazi untap later. I think they're pretty good.

I don't want a Titan going down for 1-2 mana.

I have Fresh Start for the same reason. At least you'll have a 5/10 left over or whatever.
 
Tetrinity

Tetrinity

Onderzeeboot said:
I am very aware of that. You and I also know there are a million ways around that XD
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I got curious and went poking around on Scryfall. Oddly enough, none of the normal combo cards like Freed from the Real are actually on Arena as far as I can tell. The best I've seen is going infinite with four mana, five if you need to be mana-positive:



Everything else either costs more mana, or requires colours Vivi can't add:



Special shoutout to the worst Vivi combo card in the world, though:



I haven't played Arena in quite some time, so I have no concept of whether Staff of Domination still represents an oppressive combo or if it's slow enough that it'll never come together. I'd like to think that if they ever do add Freed from the Real et. al., they'd nerf Vivi again.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Is Bazaar of Baghdad a complete trap?



Because, frankly, I'm increasingly of the opinion it might be. The fact that it doesn't produce mana is brutal and you need a massive amount of synergy just to end up at an even amount. Sure, Squee and Master of Death help but it's slow and janky.

Is it actually worth playing?
 
Nanonox

Nanonox

It’s not plug and play that’s for sure. You need specific decks for Bazaar to shine and therfore a cube with dedicated slots/archetypes.

As you said, Squee and Master are great, I’d add Monument to Endurance to that list.

Then the discard aggro deck puts it to great use sacrificing card advantage for pressure. This could be +1/+1 counters or Delve/Escape. With Madness cards, you might not even be down on cards.

Self-mill decks also love the card selection and GY growing. With enough Flashback and friends, you can mitigate the downside. Dredge is perfect in the archetype too. Your recursion needs to be on point here though.

Another aspect is that it gives White a discard outlet! The color has good recursion but garbage GY filling abilities.

You could run Urborg and Yavimaya to allow it to produce mana, but that seems like overkill. Exploration effects are good alongside it though!

It’s a powerful card that needs a lot of support to shine. I think it’s 100% worth it in my cube even if it doesn’t work every draft.
 
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