Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Grillo_Parlante
- Start date
My proudest moment in general was this one time when me and a friend found all the answers to a statistics coursework on various websites the day before it was due, and he got 19/20 and I got 20/20.My proudest moment in all of magic was in Scars/Besieged draft, winning a game where I kept the following hand:
low powered UG removal?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Sure. I think I'ld rather play...
low powered UG removal?
...though. Requires some set-up, but the card draw is nice, and it works on attacking as well as defending.
Another option is...
Have we had anything this sweet before? Personally, I'm a real sucker for combat tricks, especially trample-granters, but I'm really not sure if it's quite strong enough to be cube-worthy. I've got a pretty curated removal suite, but I think this might leave me too open to blowouts, being in green and a sorcery. Thoughts?
That card seems delightful in a fairly low-powered format even that doesn't have a ton of legends. It provides for drafters a little quest that they can fulfill, where if they grab one or two Legends they have a sweet value 5 drop. It might even inspire a sweet toolbox deck once or twice in its time in the cube. I'm on board to try it. White 5's are a dense slot, but I think it's worth a few drafts.
I'd love to try it because my cube has like, 39 legends, but unfortunately white 5's are too stacked for me, and I could never justify it. I think it's a pretty serviceable 5-drop, though. Drawing a good card and getting a 4/4 first-striker (+human typing!) sounds great, and I like how the ceiling for blinking is capped based off of drafting decisions.
Angel of Invention/Gearhulk are both awesome new adds at the 5 spot, and Lark/Guide are both beyond reproach, but maybe once the sheen of newness on Gearhulk wears off you can give Lancers a try.
Have we had anything this sweet before? Personally, I'm a real sucker for combat tricks, especially trample-granters, but I'm really not sure if it's quite strong enough to be cube-worthy. I've got a pretty curated removal suite, but I think this might leave me too open to blowouts, being in green and a sorcery. Thoughts?
I don't need my players singing Backstreet Boys during cube night.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
How about Stevie Ray Vaughan?
Serve em some Aunt Susan!
(fun fact: I reference this pretty much every time I cast Tinker, ever)
(fun fact: I reference this pretty much every time I cast Tinker, ever)
*zzzzzzzz*How about Stevie Ray Vaughan?
Sorry, what? The card bored me so much I fell asleep.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Alright, so poking around a little, and seeing talk of Expedition Map, if the "welder" style artifact deck is a thing in an environment, what about:
Which song lyric is this?
Alright, so poking around a little, and seeing talk of Expedition Map, if the "welder" style artifact deck is a thing in an environment, what about:
I know this card isn't exactly low power, but it does a good job of scaling to your environment, and there's a ridiculous amount of play to it.
Does the Ravager synergize with Welder et al.? That's what I'm in the market for. And to have it be "carefully thought out rocks and baubles".
I know this card isn't exactly low power, but it does a good job of scaling to your environment, and there's a ridiculous amount of play to it.
But it is a good card. Seems a little loose outside of artifact decks, though, and the Wellspring seems at least mediocre in random deck X.
(I mean, ravager obvs does synergize, but so do Epochrasite and Perilous Myr, arguably better than ravager does. I'm looking for other slots right now)
I run this and Ichor Wellspring. Both are great with welder, trading post, general artifact count, etc.Alright, so poking around a little, and seeing talk of Expedition Map, if the "welder" style artifact deck is a thing in an environment, what about:
I've thought about ravager before, but you really need a ton of artifacts to make it worth it. Very fun card though, so maybe someday.
I don't think Ravager needs all that much to be good (though I'm much more willing to go in on artifacts than most here). The salient point to keep in mind here is that Ravager, when supported to the level that it was in Constructed and Mirrodin limited, is far too powerful for most of our cubes. I'd wager that Ravager (along with Plating, using similar logic) is at an appropriate power level in most of our cubes in decks that have 6-10 artifacts and cards that make artifacts. It takes less than you'd think, because in a cube where it's "properly supported" it's far too good to include.
Moreover, when artifacts are somewhat scarce but the payoffs are there, drafters are put to some interesting decisions as to how they ought to evaluate the artifacts they do see--am I a deck that seeks to go off with a powerful synergy plan, or would I rather have just six or eight artifacts to make my Ravager a fine playable while also picking up random good stuff cards in my colors?
I'd been avoiding this for fear of making too bold a claim, but this artifact thing keeps coming up recently. I think my Modern Cube in my signature does a good job of promoting artifact interactions in ways that many on this forum seem to think isn't possible, for parasitism or other reasons. Here's what I think is the relevant thing that makes Ravager playable in this cube, and it's an idea I have been mulling over and has been informing my design decisions of late: adding archetypes doesn't always make your other archetypes worse. Often you can add an archetype to your cube that bridges the gap between two or more others. I make the artifact aggro theme function by inserting the "trinket" and equipment archetypes, both of which are fairly tight packages that help reach the critical density of artifacts while also increasing the demand for artifacts so that they aren't so parasitic. I'd really like some feedback on this idea and particularly its implementation in the cube, since I don't purport to have done this perfectly.
Moreover, when artifacts are somewhat scarce but the payoffs are there, drafters are put to some interesting decisions as to how they ought to evaluate the artifacts they do see--am I a deck that seeks to go off with a powerful synergy plan, or would I rather have just six or eight artifacts to make my Ravager a fine playable while also picking up random good stuff cards in my colors?
I'd been avoiding this for fear of making too bold a claim, but this artifact thing keeps coming up recently. I think my Modern Cube in my signature does a good job of promoting artifact interactions in ways that many on this forum seem to think isn't possible, for parasitism or other reasons. Here's what I think is the relevant thing that makes Ravager playable in this cube, and it's an idea I have been mulling over and has been informing my design decisions of late: adding archetypes doesn't always make your other archetypes worse. Often you can add an archetype to your cube that bridges the gap between two or more others. I make the artifact aggro theme function by inserting the "trinket" and equipment archetypes, both of which are fairly tight packages that help reach the critical density of artifacts while also increasing the demand for artifacts so that they aren't so parasitic. I'd really like some feedback on this idea and particularly its implementation in the cube, since I don't purport to have done this perfectly.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Right, but you have to remember that your format is 13% artifacts before we even start discussing artifacts from the colored sections or lands.
The Penny cube, which has an artifact sub-theme, is only 8% before the main cube/lands, and whose original affinity theme was scaled back after months of play testing showed problems supporting metalcraft and affinity at that density. I can somewhat revisit that now with the recent set release, but its unlikely to really change, realistically.
Thats not to say there is anything wrong with changing space distributions to heavily favor artifacts, but you have to factor format differences when evaluating how a card is likely to function in different formats. In addition, decks and cards that seem to come together on cube tutor, don't always survive the live play testing process.
The Penny cube, which has an artifact sub-theme, is only 8% before the main cube/lands, and whose original affinity theme was scaled back after months of play testing showed problems supporting metalcraft and affinity at that density. I can somewhat revisit that now with the recent set release, but its unlikely to really change, realistically.
Thats not to say there is anything wrong with changing space distributions to heavily favor artifacts, but you have to factor format differences when evaluating how a card is likely to function in different formats. In addition, decks and cards that seem to come together on cube tutor, don't always survive the live play testing process.