I mean that sac ability is wicked powerful. It can fairly readily present an insta-kill for a 3 mana outlay. I'm not surprised they put the body where it is. Standard body for a double striker anyways, which at least the swashbuckler could be via self-directed sac.
I don't know if I'd call it "wicked powerful", you need a reasonable amount of investment into making it worth the squeeze, and there are a lot of dumb things you can do with a consistent treasure flow. It doesn't seem to be much at all comparable to a card like
Professional Face-Breaker, which is both much better at producing treasures, and gives you an outlet for them that is generally considered more desirable in EDH. I also don't think this costing 2 or 3 is all that relevant for the format it is primarily designed towards, being limited commander, as it's more impactful when used on a big creature to begin with.
I mean, I'm actually happy that it has a "non-competitive" body. I kinda hate how efficient creatures have gotten in general.
It would likely still not be competitive in any of the actual formats where you can actually play it, it just also means it's not competitive in my cube, which doesn't feel like much to be happy about. There are still 2-drops from 15 years ago that I would consider to be more powerful than my theoretical card.
I just want some more treasures in my cube, and it's disheartening to see this sickass card design to wasted on a dud. Not only does it have cross-archetype appeal, but it also produces some nice tension between using the artifact for mana, using it for damage, and whether to use it for damage now or save it for a bigger creature. Plus it encourages you to do fun things like cast big spells or do chunky hits. These are the cards I want to play with, ones that produce erratic shifts in the flow of the game, instead of ones that are just good every turn.
Never knew that before.
