Gruff Triplets is just a straight up awful design
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- Thread starter James Stevenson
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Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
It single-handedly ruins perfectly fine WOE drafts, so I get the hate XD
I think it could be considered an un-fun design (particularly for retail draft, and particularly at rare instead of mythic) but I'm curious what you think is bad about the design.
Oh I understand not liking the card in draft. Ravnic has just mentioned disliking it three times in the past two weeks and I find that kind of funny.
I guess it's his Venser lol.
Naah, it's just a perfect example for a stupid rare that ruins limited but doesn't do much elsewhere.
Fun fact, the only time someone played a Gruff Triplets against me, I won the very next turn.
I agree with that. I'm a little surprised it hasn't shown up anywhere, given how much power it can potentially add to the board. But no, it's just a random limited card.
Based.
Chris asked this to @Rusje in the LCI thread, but I thought I'd bring it here. I'm interested to see Rusje's answer along with anyone else who wants to share. What are some of your favorite creatures? Mostly in terms of design, but for whatever reason.
I'll start with one from each color:
I love the simple design while still being able to pack a punch. Some nostalgia here, for sure.
Early interaction plus a reasonable threat down the road, all at instant speed. I like a lot of the cheap-spell-plus-big-dude adventure/channel/cycling cards for their flexibility.
The intersection of Blood Artist and Eldrazi. Admittedly, these can be a little annoying to attack against.
The two keywords make this relevant from 3 MV all the way up. Strong curve filler without being overbearing.
I like the slightly big body combined with the flexibility of a 1-for-1 Naturalize. I'm not big on ETBs, so this does it for me.
I love the cast trigger giving nearly guaranteed value combined with the absolute beating of a creature the titans present. Makes it worthwhile to build up a lot of mana.
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Oh I like this! Mostly just designs I like and cards I enjoy running almost anywhere 
White:
There's a million variations of this effect but this one is my favorite. The flavor and art are a home run with this card, just a beautiful piece that perfectly captures what the card is about. I love all of the different play patterns that come out of this thing on both sides of the table. When do you block it? How often are you gonna let them get in for 1 on the ground before you want to try to deal with the flyer? How do you want to get rid of it? Do you swing in for free damage or leave up a pesky blocker? Do you sac it? Do you sac both? When? Great stuff.
I also love Isamaru!
Blue:
Obviously I really love this card! I like the very straightforward modal options it provides and all of the little blink tricks that it enables. Type of card that teaches you how important card advantage is and how many different ways there are to take advantage of ETB effects. And beating down with it to win with your control deck in the late game is always hilarious. It also has the best art ever. Lil fish.
Black:
Simple, flavorful, powerful in the right contexts. He's an evil advisor! Really evocative. Platonic ideal of what a black card should be. Power at a price! I also love the late game sequences with this card where you start swinging in with it or leaving it up for blocks to try to get your opponent to get rid of it cus the life gain is starting to hurt you.
Red:
Easily one of my favorite cards of all time. I love the mini game this card creates, there's so much tension! Making the tough calls on whether to dump your mediocre hand for the chance at the cards in the mystery box makes you feel like you're on a game show. I also love the physical act of stacking those facedown cards turn over turn, really feels like the drama is ramping up. And I'm also just a huge sucker for the rules text "discard your hand". It always makes me go "wow! anything could happen here" and it's fun trying to figure out how to build it into an upside.
Green:
Green is the toughest here and my answer will probably change tomorrow. There's just so many good creatures in green! Gotta hand it to the bugs today though. Something about the mounting tension of watching your opponent getting closer to that 5 mana turn is so fun with this card, and I love the way it just continues getting hilariously larger.
Some honorable mentions in green cus it's hard to pick:
Young Wolf
Splinterfright
Simian Simulacrum
Duskshell Crawler
Forgotten Ancient
Nest Invader
Llanowar Elves (what can I say I'm a simple bitch)
Colorless:
Does exactly what I want a colorless card to do in most cubes: cheap, flexible, viable in a bunch of different deck styles. Really gets a bunch of different drafters fighting over the same pick.
White:
There's a million variations of this effect but this one is my favorite. The flavor and art are a home run with this card, just a beautiful piece that perfectly captures what the card is about. I love all of the different play patterns that come out of this thing on both sides of the table. When do you block it? How often are you gonna let them get in for 1 on the ground before you want to try to deal with the flyer? How do you want to get rid of it? Do you swing in for free damage or leave up a pesky blocker? Do you sac it? Do you sac both? When? Great stuff.
I also love Isamaru!
Blue:
Obviously
I really love this card! I like the very straightforward modal options it provides and all of the little blink tricks that it enables. Type of card that teaches you how important card advantage is and how many different ways there are to take advantage of ETB effects. And beating down with it to win with your control deck in the late game is always hilarious. It also has the best art ever. Lil fish.Black:
Simple, flavorful, powerful in the right contexts. He's an evil advisor! Really evocative. Platonic ideal of what a black card should be. Power at a price! I also love the late game sequences with this card where you start swinging in with it or leaving it up for blocks to try to get your opponent to get rid of it cus the life gain is starting to hurt you.
Red:
Easily one of my favorite cards of all time. I love the mini game this card creates, there's so much tension! Making the tough calls on whether to dump your mediocre hand for the chance at the cards in the mystery box makes you feel like you're on a game show. I also love the physical act of stacking those facedown cards turn over turn, really feels like the drama is ramping up. And I'm also just a huge sucker for the rules text "discard your hand". It always makes me go "wow! anything could happen here" and it's fun trying to figure out how to build it into an upside.
Green:
Green is the toughest here and my answer will probably change tomorrow. There's just so many good creatures in green! Gotta hand it to the bugs today though. Something about the mounting tension of watching your opponent getting closer to that 5 mana turn is so fun with this card, and I love the way it just continues getting hilariously larger.
Some honorable mentions in green cus it's hard to pick:
Young Wolf
Splinterfright
Simian Simulacrum
Duskshell Crawler
Forgotten Ancient
Nest Invader
Llanowar Elves (what can I say I'm a simple bitch)
Colorless:
Does exactly what I want a colorless card to do in most cubes: cheap, flexible, viable in a bunch of different deck styles. Really gets a bunch of different drafters fighting over the same pick.
Going to base this just off gameplay mechanics, not power level or aesthetic elements like art and lore.
It's kind of ironic to start with Briarhorn since it's not in my cube because of power-level concerns of it being too weak, but mechanically I think it's a really cool card. It introduces a lot of decisions about how you play it. It's modal, so you can evoke it for tempo or play it normally. You can use the pump offensively to push more damage, defensively to save your creatures, or just in general to trade up in combat. It can even target itself to come down as a 6/6 blocker, which is a great rate for its mana. I like that it can be played at instant speed, but doing so is a commitment towards trying to accomplish something, because EOTing it as a 3/3 is very underwhelming. Evoke is also a fun ability to try and exploit through blink or undying effects, but this isn't a card you can just put in a blink deck and flicker over and over to bury your opponent in cards, it gives you an effect you actually have to find a use for. Also while it's not a consideration the art is terrific.
Raw power in the colorless slot isn't very interesting from a draft or gameplay perspective, where I want players to make commitments and tradeoffs. Build arounds on the other hand are useful for increasing the permutations of possible decks in your environment, and if you can match it with multiple color combinations that's just added value. Containment Construct can be a fun tutor target with Fauna Shaman, give some longevity to the more aggressive leaning red discard decks, help break the assymetry of the more grindy black discard decks, and make for some nonsensical combo decks with Frantic Search and Lion's Eye Diamond. It's very rewarding to build around, but you don't really need that many triggers either to feel like you got your worth.
I like how this is a pretty inoccuous card that can still punch way above it's weight. You can reasonably put this into a normal aggressively-leaning deck, but upon doing so it pollutes your decision making with certain incentives. Either you start dreaming about putting it on a high-power trampler and run over your opponent, or you start drafting pump effects or other equipment hoping to surprise your opponent with a burst of damage. Pick up a Stoneforge Mystic and your plan starts to feel very feasible, giving you a small package of maybe 5 cards that are individually useful, but also come together to feel like an important part of your deck's identity. And importantly, the end product is something exciting that brings the end of the game closer, not a disgusting engine that buries you in game objects over the span of several turns.
This card represents a kind of value-generating ETB I like. You have to make actual considerations during deckbuilding to make the effect useful, and there's a hard-cap on how much you can get out of it. I also like narrow tutor effects, as they can function as artificial duplicates to the build-arounds in your cube, while still be desirable to multiple players in the draft. Their narrowness function as a type of build-around in themselves, and also usually helps keep them more competitive compared to the no-strings-attached versions. Ranger of Eos can find useful lategame cards even with the mana value restriction in Shivan Devastator and Stonecoil Serpent, interaction like Giant Killer and Concealing Curtains, give archetype support by fetching a sac outlet like Carrion Feeder or token producer like Gilded Goose, or be it's own little self-contained combo with the classic Goblin Bushwacker from the old Standard days.
This card is more powerful than I would like, but it emphasizes something I find very desirable, which is thinking about the sequencing of your card plays and giving incentives to approach it in more unorthodox ways. This card double dips on it, making the controller think about how to play twice a turn as often as possible, which might make you play your removal spell on your own turn instead of waiting, while doing the inverse for the opponent. The card adds a lot of caveats to what might otherwise be the optimal play pattern of just curving out as efficiently as possible, and the looting effect stapled to it helps ensure more consistent games and provides a lot of synergy riders. (+1/+1 counters as well, but +1/+1 counters often lean towards accumulation-based archetypes, which I don't find as desirable to support.)
It's a bit awkward to talk about Death's Shadow, as it's incredibly demanding of your environment. It's a build around with a relatively middling payoff of an efficiently statted one-drop, so you have to make it an auxiliary part of your deck's strategy, and there's not a lot of other desirable cards that rewards you for having a low life-total that you can actually put in your deck. This all begs the question of what this card is doing on my list, and well, we're talking about ideal cards, it's not my fault wotc isn't able to print more payoffs for it. If storm is the archetype that warps my cube environment the most, Death's Shadow is probably the second, and the reason I'm doing it is because it's the coolest archetype black has to offer. It's very hard to get away from black's inherent grindy way to play for the board, but Death's Shadow eschews all that and gives you one of Magic's most powerful creatures, if you're willing to live your life on a knife's edge. Thankfully, the support cards are mostly all "just good cards" I'm happy to cube regardless, like fetch-shock manabases, Thoughtseize, Ulcerate and even Street Wraith as fodder for delve and discard triggers, so while I don't think there's a Death's Shadow deck, I do think you can draft in a way to make it a good card, which is satisfactory for me. If there's one archetype I'd consider helping out with a custom card it's probably this one. It provides a quintessentially black experience that can be incredibly tense and skill-testing for both you and your opponent.
It's kind of ironic to start with Briarhorn since it's not in my cube because of power-level concerns of it being too weak, but mechanically I think it's a really cool card. It introduces a lot of decisions about how you play it. It's modal, so you can evoke it for tempo or play it normally. You can use the pump offensively to push more damage, defensively to save your creatures, or just in general to trade up in combat. It can even target itself to come down as a 6/6 blocker, which is a great rate for its mana. I like that it can be played at instant speed, but doing so is a commitment towards trying to accomplish something, because EOTing it as a 3/3 is very underwhelming. Evoke is also a fun ability to try and exploit through blink or undying effects, but this isn't a card you can just put in a blink deck and flicker over and over to bury your opponent in cards, it gives you an effect you actually have to find a use for. Also while it's not a consideration the art is terrific.
Raw power in the colorless slot isn't very interesting from a draft or gameplay perspective, where I want players to make commitments and tradeoffs. Build arounds on the other hand are useful for increasing the permutations of possible decks in your environment, and if you can match it with multiple color combinations that's just added value. Containment Construct can be a fun tutor target with Fauna Shaman, give some longevity to the more aggressive leaning red discard decks, help break the assymetry of the more grindy black discard decks, and make for some nonsensical combo decks with Frantic Search and Lion's Eye Diamond. It's very rewarding to build around, but you don't really need that many triggers either to feel like you got your worth.
I like how this is a pretty inoccuous card that can still punch way above it's weight. You can reasonably put this into a normal aggressively-leaning deck, but upon doing so it pollutes your decision making with certain incentives. Either you start dreaming about putting it on a high-power trampler and run over your opponent, or you start drafting pump effects or other equipment hoping to surprise your opponent with a burst of damage. Pick up a Stoneforge Mystic and your plan starts to feel very feasible, giving you a small package of maybe 5 cards that are individually useful, but also come together to feel like an important part of your deck's identity. And importantly, the end product is something exciting that brings the end of the game closer, not a disgusting engine that buries you in game objects over the span of several turns.
This card represents a kind of value-generating ETB I like. You have to make actual considerations during deckbuilding to make the effect useful, and there's a hard-cap on how much you can get out of it. I also like narrow tutor effects, as they can function as artificial duplicates to the build-arounds in your cube, while still be desirable to multiple players in the draft. Their narrowness function as a type of build-around in themselves, and also usually helps keep them more competitive compared to the no-strings-attached versions. Ranger of Eos can find useful lategame cards even with the mana value restriction in Shivan Devastator and Stonecoil Serpent, interaction like Giant Killer and Concealing Curtains, give archetype support by fetching a sac outlet like Carrion Feeder or token producer like Gilded Goose, or be it's own little self-contained combo with the classic Goblin Bushwacker from the old Standard days.
This card is more powerful than I would like, but it emphasizes something I find very desirable, which is thinking about the sequencing of your card plays and giving incentives to approach it in more unorthodox ways. This card double dips on it, making the controller think about how to play twice a turn as often as possible, which might make you play your removal spell on your own turn instead of waiting, while doing the inverse for the opponent. The card adds a lot of caveats to what might otherwise be the optimal play pattern of just curving out as efficiently as possible, and the looting effect stapled to it helps ensure more consistent games and provides a lot of synergy riders. (+1/+1 counters as well, but +1/+1 counters often lean towards accumulation-based archetypes, which I don't find as desirable to support.)
It's a bit awkward to talk about Death's Shadow, as it's incredibly demanding of your environment. It's a build around with a relatively middling payoff of an efficiently statted one-drop, so you have to make it an auxiliary part of your deck's strategy, and there's not a lot of other desirable cards that rewards you for having a low life-total that you can actually put in your deck. This all begs the question of what this card is doing on my list, and well, we're talking about ideal cards, it's not my fault wotc isn't able to print more payoffs for it. If storm is the archetype that warps my cube environment the most, Death's Shadow is probably the second, and the reason I'm doing it is because it's the coolest archetype black has to offer. It's very hard to get away from black's inherent grindy way to play for the board, but Death's Shadow eschews all that and gives you one of Magic's most powerful creatures, if you're willing to live your life on a knife's edge. Thankfully, the support cards are mostly all "just good cards" I'm happy to cube regardless, like fetch-shock manabases, Thoughtseize, Ulcerate and even Street Wraith as fodder for delve and discard triggers, so while I don't think there's a Death's Shadow deck, I do think you can draft in a way to make it a good card, which is satisfactory for me. If there's one archetype I'd consider helping out with a custom card it's probably this one. It provides a quintessentially black experience that can be incredibly tense and skill-testing for both you and your opponent.
@Chris Taylor
@Brad
Of your choices I rate them:
Too strong:
Why? Well for three one should be getting a 2/2 with a great ability or a 3/3 without an ability (when demanding more pips). Brontodon is too strong for it's mana cost, let alone the nice ability. Kozilek is okay if there is no cheat going on since sneak attacking kozi is game over. I rather have sneak than kozi.
The whale is nice, but the whole package is too strong for my tastes. A 6/6 in blue with flash should cost a tad more, but is fine without everything else going on. Let alone if you add the nice return a creature to top at the start and do not get me started on ward. That leaves sifter. Well for 4 mana one should get a 3/3 with something nice or maybe a 4/3. But not both.
Likely too strong but okay ish:
Isamaru is a tad too strong but okay. It is not invalidating everything and does nothing else than being big.
Shivan is only too powerful with x=3 and it is always good due to the scalability.
That leaves pawn which I really like. It ticks the powerlevel I like. It is a 2/2 for 3 (slightly weak) but the ability is great. Other cards that I think are my powerlevel:
Too summarise: I am a simple laddie (well, maybe more the grumpy old kind nowadays but behave like a laddie) but I like that the opponent can durdle a turn. I like when there is time to find an answer. I like it when cards make you work for it. I like it when the power level grows with mana cost but more like a linear growth than the exponential growth of the new cards. Note that a 2/2 is a ten turn clock as opposed to a 3/1, which is only 7. Let alone a 4/3 which is a 5 turn clock. The more powerful the creatures the less time for answers.
In cube it is possible to have weak creatures (which allows durdling a bit) and strong removal by restricting the amount of removal. Mtg went the other way with etb galore such that answering it with simple removal left you behind. Let alone the powerlevel surge.
If stuff breaks down when you add a fyndhorn elves into the set than one should think deeply why stuff breaks down. Is it the fault of a 1/1 which boosts your mana or is it what I think that the 3 or 4 mana cost cards are too powerful?
@Brad
Of your choices I rate them:
Too strong:
Why? Well for three one should be getting a 2/2 with a great ability or a 3/3 without an ability (when demanding more pips). Brontodon is too strong for it's mana cost, let alone the nice ability. Kozilek is okay if there is no cheat going on since sneak attacking kozi is game over. I rather have sneak than kozi.
The whale is nice, but the whole package is too strong for my tastes. A 6/6 in blue with flash should cost a tad more, but is fine without everything else going on. Let alone if you add the nice return a creature to top at the start and do not get me started on ward. That leaves sifter. Well for 4 mana one should get a 3/3 with something nice or maybe a 4/3. But not both.
Likely too strong but okay ish:
Isamaru is a tad too strong but okay. It is not invalidating everything and does nothing else than being big.
Shivan is only too powerful with x=3 and it is always good due to the scalability.
That leaves pawn which I really like. It ticks the powerlevel I like. It is a 2/2 for 3 (slightly weak) but the ability is great. Other cards that I think are my powerlevel:
Too summarise: I am a simple laddie (well, maybe more the grumpy old kind nowadays but behave like a laddie) but I like that the opponent can durdle a turn. I like when there is time to find an answer. I like it when cards make you work for it. I like it when the power level grows with mana cost but more like a linear growth than the exponential growth of the new cards. Note that a 2/2 is a ten turn clock as opposed to a 3/1, which is only 7. Let alone a 4/3 which is a 5 turn clock. The more powerful the creatures the less time for answers.
In cube it is possible to have weak creatures (which allows durdling a bit) and strong removal by restricting the amount of removal. Mtg went the other way with etb galore such that answering it with simple removal left you behind. Let alone the powerlevel surge.
If stuff breaks down when you add a fyndhorn elves into the set than one should think deeply why stuff breaks down. Is it the fault of a 1/1 which boosts your mana or is it what I think that the 3 or 4 mana cost cards are too powerful?
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It's just a pile of stats that you need to pay 3 removal spells before it's dealt with. It goes against everything I like about the game, a big part which is managing tempo and card advantage. If I doom blade one of the triplets, I get punished for it! It takes absolutely no cleverness on the part of the pilot, just get to 6 mana and durr hurr you'll now completely dominate any future combat phases.
Well, you could add non-creature cards from the recent sets.
I definitely add stuff, but it's tough to do when Morph is a defining feature of the environment.
Yes it is. Even in the old days 3 mana 2/2 when one has to pay unlock the true power was weak. Fun due to the surprise factor but quite weak and really restrictive.
Edit: do you mind that I will steal some of your ideas for my own morph cube?
There's no "stealing" here. It's all yours.
It was not so weak. Many morph cards saw play in various formats. Especially Standard and Extended which were the two most popular formats by the time. Mind you that it wasn't 3 mana 2/2 where you had to pay extra to unlock it's average power level. When you had paid both the 3 mana and the morph cost then you would gain something that was much above the curve.
I feel like people tend to undervalue morphs, at least those with a good flip ability. Yeah, a 3-mana 2/2 is bad, but what if it draws you a Naturalize or Regrowth on etb?
(... and gets +1/+0 perpetually when you cast it, I guess.)
(... and gets +1/+0 perpetually when you cast it, I guess.)
You mean
.In limited it was not unheard to have off-color morphs. A 2/2 for 3 was just good enough when one was low on creatures.
In extended the angel was good. Not because it is good for the total cost of 7 mana but because it is good in a draw go shell. The unmorph cost were kinda "free" let alone that one could sandbag it and play the three upfront with countermagic up.
Reallistically, Exalted Angel had an early version of Foretell.
It's a shame they didn't go for a 2 mana 2/2 as the baseline.
It's a shame they didn't go for a 2 mana 2/2 as the baseline.
The problem there is that (more so in Onslaught, but even in Khans and even to this day) it basically invalidates too much possible design.
You can't make two drops because they compete with borph (that's the official internal WotC slang for it, I swear! Bear Morph!)
You can't make three drops that aren't mega pushed because otherwise you just play a bear that you flip later
You can't do the equivalent of Glory Seeker because it's a shitload of Savannah Lions
here's some poorly formatted MaRo (thanks, WotC website transition...) talking about how it's rough - you can't go under a bear morph easily and it warps the entire environment around it. Which is fine for a cube, maybe. But not so good for Standard, let alone retail Limited.
You can't make two drops because they compete with borph (that's the official internal WotC slang for it, I swear! Bear Morph!)
You can't make three drops that aren't mega pushed because otherwise you just play a bear that you flip later
You can't do the equivalent of Glory Seeker because it's a shitload of Savannah Lions
here's some poorly formatted MaRo (thanks, WotC website transition...) talking about how it's rough - you can't go under a bear morph easily and it warps the entire environment around it. Which is fine for a cube, maybe. But not so good for Standard, let alone retail Limited.
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You are completely right that b/morph warps the format. I do not agree that one cannot go under/over a morph card. elvish warrior was in onslaught after all. The thing with morph is that the tension on what is below is fun, but being blown out of the water with a cheap unmorph can be backbreaking.
It is also fine for limited, for standard it is harder nowadays. But that is just due to the pushed stats that has become the norm.
You mean
Yes and:
Hystrodon quickly didn’t hold up in Standard but it had a few weeks of massive play in Standard. Brine Elemental saw some play in some combo control decks that were a bit fringe. Dwarven Blastminer was an all star in Extended. Exalted Angel dominated several formats. Voidmage Prodigy dominated Standard for a brief period. This is world champion Kai Budde by the way. Blistering Firecat was part of a mono red aggro deck that was top tier for a long time. Red Akroma was a blink piece in Extended and Legacy. I don’t remember exactly which deck had Bane of the Living but I believe it was this mega ramp deck in mono black running Cabal Coffers. Fathom Seer only saw fringe play. For a short period as an additional Gush in Legacy. I would say this one was mostly sub-top tier.
Many years later Rattleclaw Mystic saw play in a Big Temur deck in Standard.
Although it was mostly cast without morph.
No, you can absolutely go under a morph - even Glory Seeker proves that - but you can't go under a bear morph very easily. Because then your entire environment has to be two power one drops or three toughess one drops.