Card/Deck Cogwork Librarian

Chris Taylor

Contributor
This card has been psudo-prieviewd for the upcoming summer multiplayer product "Conspiracy", alongside some {4}{B}{W} 4/4 flying day of judgement.

Cogwork Librarian {4}
Artifact Creature - Construct
Draft Cogwork Librarian face up. As you draft a card you may draft an additional card from that booster pack. If you do, put Cogwork Librarian into that booster pack.
3/3

CogworkLibrarian.jpg


I'm gonna be trying him out next time I get to draft (which is likely not going to be for a few weeks)

I'm a little nervous about a card that contributes to the draft process but won't ever be cast, so I'm reducing the cost by {1} and making him a golem so that he might make your final 40.

Thoughts?
 

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Personally, I'd go the other direction with this draft gimic and give each player one copy of it before the draft starts. Being able to double up your picks or later pick this guy to mulligan a bad pack will help make decks smoother, particular in an undersized draft.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Personally, I'd go the other direction with this draft gimic and give each player one copy of it before the draft starts. Being able to double up your picks or later pick this guy to mulligan a bad pack will help make decks smoother, particular in an undersized draft.

This sounds like an awful idea and ruins the dynamic. I love that you have to judge how big of a resource this card is worth. I imagine there are times where it's correct to take it, like, first or second pick. Getting one for free seems really unappealing to me because it takes away the entire risk / reward mechanic.

As far as I'm concerned no errata is needed because the effect is super strong on its own.
 

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
I think the dynamic is much less interesting then leveraging the effect as a way to smooth out the drafting process. Giving a couple of the players in the draft, determined basically randomly, a pick mulligan is not a dynamic I'm interested in.
 
For those that haven't heard of my reference to Sushi Go, above, it's actually quite a good card drafting game:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/133473/sushi-go

There's a card in there call Chopsticks that you draft face up (you draft everything face up) and that when you're drafting you can declare 'sushi go!', take two cards from the pack and return chopsticks to the booster. Sound familiar?

You score points in sushi go by completing sets of different cards. The closest analogy in magic is perhaps take two synergestic or on colour power cards from the same pack. And if it's in pack 1 or 2 then you still get good use of out it and the fun of 'passing the hot potato' so you don't get stuck with it. In sushi go, chopstick aren't worth anything and it's quite good fun to get stuck with it at the end of the game. Here you get a 4 mana 3/3 which is possibly next to worthless in a cube environment.

I need to get over feeling like it's a real card and working out how to play with it in grid draft...
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
For those that haven't heard of my reference to Sushi Go, above, it's actually quite a good card drafting game:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/133473/sushi-go

There's a card in there call Chopsticks that you draft face up (you draft everything face up) and that when you're drafting you can declare 'sushi go!', take two cards from the pack and return chopsticks to the booster. Sound familiar?

You score points in sushi go by completing sets of different cards. The closest analogy in magic is perhaps take two synergestic or on colour power cards from the same pack. And if it's in pack 1 or 2 then you still get good use of out it and the fun of 'passing the hot potato' so you don't get stuck with it. In sushi go, chopstick aren't worth anything and it's quite good fun to get stuck with it at the end of the game. Here you get a 4 mana 3/3 which is possibly next to worthless in a cube environment.

I need to get over feeling like it's a real card and working out how to play with it in grid draft...

Take Row + Column.
 
Sounds savage, but if you have to hand it to your opponent?

As much as I think this is neat I probably won't be able to play it. I play with lots of new players and durdles, so entire packs get grabbed (even when using a die-on-top rule etc.) and people stack packs while drafting blah blah blah this guy would be a nightmare for a lot of players I know. I'm sad I have no middle ground between pro tour players and randoms who haven't played magic since time spiral or something.
 
Do we have any idea what rarity this is? I realise this is possibly a dumb question, due to the nature of non-set products; but at rare it seems like it shows up rarely enough to be unfair, and at uncommon it's too frequent. I guess they're increasing the number of uncommons, so it would show up a bit rarer than at the moment? Blah.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I don't think anybody would ever include a vanilla 3/3 for 3 in one of their cube decks in my cube. May as well cost infinite.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
That mockup is the one I'm adding to my cube, that's why. Assuming someone wants him to cost 4 and be a construct, I'll mockup another one, but I just had this one lying around.

I dunno jason, he is colorless after all. I can see him filling curves if you get stuck with him midway through pack 3.
Though I think we can agree he wont really be making the deck at 4 mana. (I suppose he might in traditional limited)
 
I'm definitely going to be running him (but not proxying before it's available) and it'll be without errata. I think he's fine as is. I'm okay with him being a poor card to put into your actual deck because of how awesome he is during draft and because it encourages a sort of hot potato feel to it.
 
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