Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Fun combo or GRBS?

Yes.

I mean, that's the thing with combos, right? They're usually fun (for the pilot at least) and degenerate at the same time! I accidentally put Basalt Monolith and Wake Thrasher together in my first ever cube attempt, and watching that go off was hilarious, but I also decided to cut it immediately after the draft, because that wasn't the type of cube I was trying to build. If you do foster a combo-ish cube though, I think this is super fine, especially since you need a third piece (namely a sacrifice outlet) to break Finks and Redcap.
 


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Fun combo or GRBS?


I actually don't really like Vizier of Remedies because at least in my cube it's never ever playable on it's own. It's purely a "broken with persist" card. Compared to for example:



which (1) stand on their own (2) but importantly are also much more expensive so you have to do some more work to assemble the combo e.g. you need more mana, you need a longer pod chain, you can't get the whole combo in a single Protean Hulk. I'm waffling on Mazirek personally because (a) the pod chains are shorter, but (b) the card is a crazy midrange-pressure card in an environment with lots of fetches - it triggers on the opponent's fetches too! I don't play Metallic Mimic even though it would be fine outside of the persist deck because (a) it's way too cheap, (b) it's an artifact which in my cube means its easier to find, fetch, recur, (c) the other mode is purely aggressive which I don't really support.

Overall, I'd say if all the pieces are playable, and the pieces are expensive enough, I don't see any problem with it going infinite with a sac outlet, and it's a fun win condition in my combo environment where people don't win with combat damage.
 


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Fun combo or GRBS?

I actually don't really like Vizier of Remedies because at least in my cube it's never ever playable on it's own. It's purely a "broken with persist" card. Compared to for example:



which (1) stand on their own (2) but importantly are also much more expensive so you have to do some more work to assemble the combo e.g. you need more mana, you need a longer pod chain, you can't get the whole combo in a single Protean Hulk. I'm waffling on Mazirek personally because (a) the pod chains are shorter, but (b) the card is a crazy midrange-pressure card in an environment with lots of fetches - it triggers on the opponent's fetches too! I don't play Metallic Mimic even though it would be fine outside of the persist deck because (a) it's way too cheap, (b) it's an artifact which in my cube means its easier to find, fetch, recur, (c) the other mode is purely aggressive which I don't really support.

Overall, I'd say if all the pieces are playable, and the pieces are expensive enough, I don't see any problem with it going infinite with a sac outlet, and it's a fun win condition in my combo environment where people don't win with combat damage.

I had briefly considered Vizier of Remedies in my next update under the same context as whydirt- it's really fun with Devoted Druid, Kitchen Finks, and Murderous Redcap. However, Vizier of Remedies' floor as a goblin piker just isn't good enough in a format trying to facilitate this combo.

If you're just looking for persist shenanigans, then I thing the options presented by DBS are good. Personally, I'd only play Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Metallic Mimic at a medium-high power level. I also think you should consider Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit.

Anafenza is nice because she both facilitates persist combos, while still being a good White Weenie card in general. Any deck running white as a primary color can slot her in and not feel bad about it, which can't be said for her closest analog on this list Vizier of Remedies. Although she is harder to cast than vizier, she still works well in Finks combo decks and, to a lesser extent, Murderous Redcap decks. I also like the fact that she is good with those cards in the absence of a sac-outlet.
 
Another great piece for Persist combo that happens to be the same colours as Finks and Redcap, the two best (and only non-glen-elendra-archmage playable) Persisters:


I completely forgot to talk about that! I'm adding it to my rebuild as well in addition to the RNA Domri as sort of a fires-archetype enabler.

Could Persist-Combo be a real archetype, that uses alreafy fine cards for a great effect?

It isn't deep enough to be a color-pair archetype, but it could be a fun one-off deck like Splinter Twin or Jeskai Ascendancy
 
No, not a classic 2 color archetype, but a combo(value) deck, aviable in different colors, if you get the right cards.

We have these 8 enablers at least, probably a few more:



Plus these "payoffs":



There are even more persist creatures, which are playable in at least a medium powerlevel range. And in general, most of the cards I listed seem pretty decent in a vacuum, some are even top tier.
 
How powerful is this card?




I hav a lower powered cube where Arc Lightning is a really solid first pick. So I fear, that a scalable one might be too much.

Edit: It is not possible to write Avacyn's Judgement and have it recognized
 
Judgment*

I've had good experience with avacyn's judgment and think it's a pretty fair card...fairly low powered for my cube. It costs an additional mana to be arc lightning, and requires a hoop to jump through to get there. If you're concerned, violent eruption would be an even more fair option.
 
Embarassing, I thouhgt the ' was the problem. And it's not the first time I've written "Judgment" wrong. I feel like it should have that "e" :p

I'm a little scared by that late game turn where one loots it away and gets a free plague wind from it. BUT I am going to test it!
 
If Arc Lightning is that high a pick in your environment, then this with consistent looting effects might be too strong. It also depends on how often Lightning is a 2/1 split and how big of a hit that ends up being tempo wise. If 1/1 splits as the base case are fine, then this will be okay. Giving cards like that more utility by jumping through an additional hoop should be fine as long as it isn't completely game-warping ala a giant Rolling Thunder in a Limited environment. Once in a while it's a cool play to see in action, but you don't want that to happen every single time with a semi-modal spell like this.
 
Anyone played Garbage Fire? I'm looking for burn spells relevant in a format with unusually tough creatures, and on paper Garbage fire seems like it would scale with whatever format its in, which I find interesting. And I really like the 3 cmc instantness of it.

Vaguely related: Should powered cubes be running this?
 
Anyone played Garbage Fire? I'm looking for burn spells relevant in a format with unusually tough creatures, and on paper Garbage fire seems like it would scale with whatever format its in, which I find interesting. And I really like the 3 cmc instantness of it.
I have played with it in the past. It is really, really swingy. It usually deals between 4-10 damage. It kind of feels like a red Murder. I don't like all of the "draft matters" baggage that comes along with it, and I feel it usually ends up being more trouble than it's worth.

Vaguely related: Should powered cubes be running this?

No. Run Char if you're not already.
 
What are our opinions on:

I had this at the WAR prerelease and thought it was pretty cool. It seems to line up with my target power level pretty well, too. Any thoughts?
 

What in the name of Swindon Works is this? Removal land? Kills your Dark Confidants, Oona's Prowlers, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben's, Young Pyromancers, Llanowar Elves... In the CT 720 cube this has 95(!) hits that it immediately kills. The 360 has 47. My old list had 39. I think this might actually be pretty interesting to run, especially with all of the great new proliferate cards like Evolution Sage that make a single -1/-1 counter more relevant. I might test it if I can make room in my rebuild. Do you guys think it's worth it, provided I have the space?
 
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