It's been a while since I've been around these parts, but I thought you guys might be interested in a concept I've been using when thinking about strategy and synergy composition - a concept that I've been referring to as "workhorses".
And so we get the idea of a "workhorse". A workhorse is a tool that helps you have consistent access to a particular condition or resource, in the situations where you need that condition or resource.
This is useful for strategy composition with the following logic: "If I consistently have access to this condition/resource in a given situation, then I can compose a strategy relying on that condition/resource in that situation."
The process of identifying what kind of workhorse cards a strategy needs(and in which situations it needs them) can be incredibly helpful for figuring out how well you are supporting that strategy in your cube, and what kind of cards you could include to better support it.
Let's take, for example, a deck aiming to be able to consistently curve out Improvise creatures. In that case, cheap artifact creatures or creatures that unconditionally create artifacts are going to be good workhorses, as they can consistently get artifacts on your board while you're curving out. In comparison, conditional or situational artifacts are not going to be good workhorses.
Of course, while highly unconditional creatures that fit into your mana curve tend to be very obviously useful as workhorses, not all workhorses have to be as such.
Here's another piece of logic: "If my strategy only needs consistent access to this condition/resource in situation X, then I don't need that condition/resource to be accessible in other situations."
For example, Take Heart is both situational and conditional as a source of lifegain, which would make it a poor "lifegain workhorse" in most cases.
But for something like an Ajani's Pridemate aggro deck where you're expecting to play Ajani's Pridemate early and then need to attack over something with it, the situations where Take Heart can give you lifegain encompass enough of the situations where you need that lifegain that Take Heart can be a decent-albeit-imperfect lifegain workhorse, in spite of its conditionality.
For another lifegain example, Honey Mammoth has the hefty condition of costing 6 mana. But for something like Silversmote Ghoul, it can still be a good "lifegain workhorse", as Silversmote Ghoul is generally going to wind up in your graveyard somewhere in the midgame and then stay there for the rest of the game. Thus, in a retail-speed format, most of the turns where you're going "I wish I could activate Silversmote Ghoul right now" will be ones where you actually do have 6 mana available.
So yeah, that's workhorses. Hope you'll find this concept as useful to work with as I have!
And so we get the idea of a "workhorse". A workhorse is a tool that helps you have consistent access to a particular condition or resource, in the situations where you need that condition or resource.
This is useful for strategy composition with the following logic: "If I consistently have access to this condition/resource in a given situation, then I can compose a strategy relying on that condition/resource in that situation."
The process of identifying what kind of workhorse cards a strategy needs(and in which situations it needs them) can be incredibly helpful for figuring out how well you are supporting that strategy in your cube, and what kind of cards you could include to better support it.
Let's take, for example, a deck aiming to be able to consistently curve out Improvise creatures. In that case, cheap artifact creatures or creatures that unconditionally create artifacts are going to be good workhorses, as they can consistently get artifacts on your board while you're curving out. In comparison, conditional or situational artifacts are not going to be good workhorses.
Of course, while highly unconditional creatures that fit into your mana curve tend to be very obviously useful as workhorses, not all workhorses have to be as such.
Here's another piece of logic: "If my strategy only needs consistent access to this condition/resource in situation X, then I don't need that condition/resource to be accessible in other situations."
For example, Take Heart is both situational and conditional as a source of lifegain, which would make it a poor "lifegain workhorse" in most cases.
But for something like an Ajani's Pridemate aggro deck where you're expecting to play Ajani's Pridemate early and then need to attack over something with it, the situations where Take Heart can give you lifegain encompass enough of the situations where you need that lifegain that Take Heart can be a decent-albeit-imperfect lifegain workhorse, in spite of its conditionality.
For another lifegain example, Honey Mammoth has the hefty condition of costing 6 mana. But for something like Silversmote Ghoul, it can still be a good "lifegain workhorse", as Silversmote Ghoul is generally going to wind up in your graveyard somewhere in the midgame and then stay there for the rest of the game. Thus, in a retail-speed format, most of the turns where you're going "I wish I could activate Silversmote Ghoul right now" will be ones where you actually do have 6 mana available.
So yeah, that's workhorses. Hope you'll find this concept as useful to work with as I have!
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