Sets Conspiracy 2 Spoilers Thread

Grenzo may be cool, but there's a lot of little things stacking up against him for me. Goad is probably foremost amongst them. I really dislike that it's not spelled out, and it's just a pretty stupid mechanic besides that, imo.
I like Ash Zealot better for my environment.
 
Goad is a bit of a weird mechanic 1v1, and exiling the top of your opponent's library isn't actually as useful as you'd think. Take, for example, the deck that wants to run abbot of keral keep, a card with a similar ability to Grenzo's second one. The deck keeps this card functional by keeping the mana cost of the deck streamlined and low, with very few (if any) cards above the 3-drop curve.

Grenzo has no guarantee of hitting a deck that's committed to having cards of reasonable cmc in it, and without the ability to play lands he will likely miss over half the time. (although obviously this depends on your specific cube.)

I'll pass on him for Cubing, for now.

That being said, I'm making a goblins EDH deck around him, so I admit I do love the card for other formats!
 
Uh. 'Splain? I don't follow.

People were preordering $120 playsets of Aurelia's Fury for standard. It saw all kinds of play, every box of leftover draft chaff ran a playset. That's basically Grenzo. You need to pray to RNGsus every night to hit the exact board states where making creatures attack isn't flavor text or random cards out of an opponent's deck are castable and meaningle spells for a deck that produces {R}{R}.
 
That's basically Grenzo. You need to pray [...] random cards out of an opponent's deck are castable and meaningle spells for a deck that produces {R}{R}.

Phonestoners can keep their washed-up deities. Grenzo's second ability is interesting enough. Sure, s/he/it won't always find another aggro creature or a burn spell to aid 2-drop-creature-red's focus, but wishing off the oppo's deck for a few cards in Limited will most likely result in something castable ...and I'd reckon a fun memory of cubing.

"Exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast it."

(I decided to forego adding Grenzies to my Grid where red is 50% goblins. Full disclosure.)
 
Phonestoners can keep their washed-up deities. Grenzo's second ability is interesting enough. Sure, s/he/it won't always find another aggro creature or a burn spell to aid 2-drop-creature-red's focus, but wishing off the oppo's deck for a few cards in Limited will most likely result in something castable ...and I'd reckon a fun memory of cubing.

"Exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast it."

(I decided to forego adding Grenzies to my Grid where red is 50% goblins. Full disclosure.)


Remember, Grenzo doesn't let you play lands. At minimum, 1/3 of your opponent's deck is a miss.
 
Remember, Grenzo doesn't let you play lands. At minimum, 1/3 of your opponent's deck is a miss.
Right, but you get a card for each creature that hits. Like I noted up thread, he's basically a red version of Edric. I feel like the potential value he adds, particularly in token strategies, is worth RR. Also, if you Goad a key blocker, it makes future attacks more likely to connect, so you're going to get more bites of the pie with him. I could certainly be wrong, but he's interesting enough to merit testing to find out either way.
 
Right, but you get a card for each creature that hits. Like I noted up thread, he's basically a red version of Edric. I feel like the potential value he adds, particularly in token strategies, is worth RR. Also, if you Goad a key blocker, it makes future attacks more likely to connect, so you're going to get more bites of the pie with him. I could certainly be wrong, but he's interesting enough to merit testing to find out either way.


Be sure to let me know what you find with him; I'll admit that you've made me curious as well!
 

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Anyone done a draft with Conspiracy 2 yet? Based on the spoilers, I expected to enjoy it a lot more than the original, but in practise, the games turned out to be mostly giant board stalls with few ways of breaking through or moving the game state forward. Monarch is a fantastic mechanic, and creates interesting tension around the table, but melee is pretty much dead-on-arrival as a mechanic, as attacking everyone is almost never the correct strategic move.

I'm still gonna try and draft the set again, but my hopes of this set surpassing the incredible multiplayer gameplay of the first Conspiracy have kinda been dampened at this point.
 
Anyone done a draft with Conspiracy 2 yet? Based on the spoilers, I expected to enjoy it a lot more than the original, but in practise, the games turned out to be mostly giant board stalls with few ways of breaking through or moving the game state forward. Monarch is a fantastic mechanic, and creates interesting tension around the table, but melee is pretty much dead-on-arrival as a mechanic, as attacking everyone is almost never the correct strategic move.

I'm still gonna try and draft the set again, but my hopes of this set surpassing the incredible multiplayer gameplay of the first Conspiracy have kinda been dampened at this point.


I did 2 drafts just last night. The first one, I tried to pick up all the white removal I could, and went into blue for flyers. It may/may not have been the right move, still unsure considering I got ganged up on while having little/no board state. I was slain quickly.

Game two, I drafted R/W and splashed black for Daretti and Phyrexian Arena. I was lucky enough to get good fixing so 3 colors was not an issue. I sandbagged the daretti from my opening hand all game, and wound up winning with 1 life when my opponent killed the other players and thought he was safe with his platinum angel in play. 10/10 would daretti again.
 
verdurousgearhulk.jpg
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
What the f? Wolfir Silverheart was overwhelming in my cube, and this is better in about 738 ways. How is this even adhering to sensible costing standards? Did they change the 3's to 4's without altering the casting cost just before they sent off the set to the printers? Ridiculous card.

Edit: Can we just agree that we would call a straight up 8/8 trample for {3}{G}{G} dumb? Like, what the heck were they thinking dumb? This isn't just an 8/8 trample for five, it also can shift half of its power to other creatures if that happens to be better, and it plays nice with artifact synergies! Like I said, ridiculous.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
What the f? Wolfir Silverheart was overwhelming in my cube, and this is better in about 738 ways. How is this even adhering to sensible costing standards? Did they change the 3's to 4's without altering the casting cost just before they sent off the set to the printers? Ridiculous card.

Edit: Can we just agree that we would call a straight up 8/8 trample for {3}{G}{G} dumb? Like, what the heck were they thinking dumb? This isn't just an 8/8 trample for five, it also can shift half of its power to other creatures if that happens to be better, and it plays nice with artifact synergies! Like I said, ridiculous.
Pretty sure I used to run Spectral Force. A looooooooong time ago, that is.
 
Kalonian Hydra is worse because if you can't remove it, it becomes a 16/16 (at which point the game ends). But I agree with Onderzeeboot, Wolfir just won games almost randomly and I ended up removing it from my midrange cube. And this is likely better (though maybe a tad less swingy since it's adding 8 power and not 12 power). Probably a safe pass for me, though I do like that it's an artifact.
 
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