General Fight Club

Aston

Aston

CaptnIrony said:
Ask your drafters about it after the game, they don't end up equivalent.
Click to expand...


I'm confident that if I asked any drafter after every game that they missed on Glint-Nest Crane whether they'd prefer to swap it out for a Seacoast Drake, they'd say no. It seems absurd to me to argue that you might not want a card in the cube because it doesn't have its best case scenario 100% of the time.

Velrun said:
I you make one card better, then you are indirectly making all other cards worse. It doesn’t matter if the card is a lot or a little better. That is a choice and it is an argument against not always picking the best card for the cube. The other option is power max.
Click to expand...


This is also completely reductive and demonstrably untrue in this specific case. Adding a Glint-Nest Crane to your cube over a Seacoast Drake makes every artifact in your cube better, not worse. I will concede that it raises the average power level and therefore some cards will be lower relative to the average power level, but in that case it does matter whether that's by a lot or a little bit. You might be ok with raising the average power level 1% but not 10%.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Yeah, I'm with Aston on the Glint-Nest Crane. If you're in the market for a 1/3 that can also block in the air, the Crane is just better and has the upside of filtering and potentially drawing you another card. Augur of Bolas was a passable cube card for a long time. An unconditional ETB draw a card off a 2 drop with a body that is actually a roadblock early would be too good, but the likes of Crane and Augur are just fine. I don't see any reason to play the Drake unless it's for art, restrictions in cube design, or to reduce complexity in a beginner cube.

I do agree on the Spirit lord however. Lords signal support/archetypes of that ilk are viable and it can be a false alarm for the majority of drafters (like Goblin Warchief in Dominaria draft). Also, if you have Spirits that other decks would want for utilities sake (Remorseful Cleric, Selfless Spirit) or efficiency (Geist of Saint Traft), there's just no guarantee that the drafter who picked up the lord will wheel anything else their way to take advantage. You get the 1/3 body you were looking for, but drafters will probably just end up disappointed or confused.
 
CaptnIrony

CaptnIrony

Aston said:
I'm confident that if I asked any drafter after every game that they missed on Glint-Nest Crane whether they'd prefer to swap it out for a Seacoast Drake, they'd say no. It seems absurd to me to argue that you might not want a card in the cube because it doesn't have its best case scenario 100% of the time.
Click to expand...


I'd agree on that.

However, humans are easily tricked. Here are two scenarios:

A player has a blue deck where they have a few artifacts, let's say 8. They play Glint-Nest Crane, and end up whiffing a lot of the time because they now have ~ 40% chance to. Ask them, out of 10, where they'd rate their Glint-Nest Crane.

Take the same player, in the same situation, where they instead played a Seacoast Drake. Ask them where they'd rate the Seacoast Drake.

I'd be willing to bet they'd rate their card higher in the second example.

People aren't robots. You can argue with them until you're blue in the face that while something might feel better, it could actually be worse. I think this is one of those situations. I don't disagree with you that the Glint-Nest Crane is stronger, nor do I disagree that players should be happier with the Crane than the Drake, nor do I even think the majority of players would come to the wrong decision. I'd play the Glint-Nest Crane in my cube over the Seacoast Drake. But I'd know, in the same way that a player decided that Abbot of Keral Keep was bad because it exiled a card they couldn't play that they wanted to cast at some point in the game, some players could end up dislike Glint-Nest Crane more than the drake, because of its extra ability. Missing on all 4 cards (~30% chance with 10 artifacts in the deck), having both pieces of their artifact combo in the top 4, putting their bomb or other cards they were looking for at the bottom. The drake does what's on the tin 100% of the time. Game designers have known, for a while that humans are easily tricked, and easily upset.

Like this:

EDIT: Changed 70% to 30%, cause I suck.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Glint-nest crane reads awful, often signals awful, and in many cubes will just put the top 4 cards of your library onto the bottom, after delaying and slowing down the game. Given how often its likely to just be a seacost drake anyways, unless you have an abnormally large artifact section, I can see cutting out most of that empty complexity in favor of the drake.

Though I would rather not run either, and go with something in the 2cc slot that universally reduces negative variance across decks, like omenspeaker.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Aston said:
I'm confident that if I asked any drafter after every game that they missed on Glint-Nest Crane whether they'd prefer to swap it out for a Seacoast Drake, they'd say no. It seems absurd to me to argue that you might not want a card in the cube because it doesn't have its best case scenario 100% of the time.




This is also completely reductive and demonstrably untrue in this specific case. Adding a Glint-Nest Crane to your cube over a Seacoast Drake makes every artifact in your cube better, not worse. I will concede that it raises the average power level and therefore some cards will be lower relative to the average power level, but in that case it does matter whether that's by a lot or a little bit. You might be ok with raising the average power level 1% but not 10%.
Click to expand...

I hope you managed to understand the argument even if you found a minor detail to step on.

You asked “Is there any reason to play Seacoast Drake over Glint-Nest Crane or Supreme Phantom?” and you got your answer. There are many reasons but I have highlighted the most important ones for you.

I hope the answer is what you were looking for and that everything is more clear now.
 
Aston

Aston

I mean, I think you read my question as "is there any reason to play a less powerful card over a more powerful one", which is worth discussing, but I was talking about those actual cards. The signalling point especially in respect of the Phantom is a good one, but I don't find either the power level argument or the "feel bad" argument especially persuasive.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Velrun said:
I you make one card better, then you are indirectly making all other cards worse. It doesn’t matter if the card is a lot or a little better. That is a choice and it is an argument against not always picking the best card for the cube. The other option is power max.
Click to expand...


I agree with most of your post, but will nitpick here. In my opinion, arguably you would be making cards more likely to be played in the same deck better, and cards less likely to be played in the same deck worse.

A nerf to Gravecrawler is a nerf to Carrion Feeder.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Jason Waddell said:
I agree with most of your post, but will nitpick here. In my opinion, arguably you would be making cards more likely to be played in the same deck better, and cards less likely to be played in the same deck worse.

A nerf to Gravecrawler is a nerf to Carrion Feeder.
Click to expand...

Yep. It is nitpicking and I agree with both you and Aston :)
 
safra

safra

CaptnIrony said:
So close, but I detest un-cards/sets, and while this one would be printable in black border, I would never play it as is.
Click to expand...

black bordered Perfect Fits, dog

Here's my Fight Club contest:



I have a few pieces of artifact top-end but recently cut Goblin Welder for being too situational. I run 11 dragons in a 450, and have leaned into the emotional aspect of Cube when it comes to running Dragons, Angels, etc... - I think of the two it's an easy Sarkhan, right?
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

safra said:
black bordered Perfect Fits, dog

Here's my Fight Club contest:



I have a few pieces of artifact top-end but recently cut Goblin Welder for being too situational. I run 11 dragons in a 450, and have leaned into the emotional aspect of Cube when it comes to running Dragons, Angels, etc... - I think of the two it's an easy Sarkhan, right?
Click to expand...

Add Sarkhan, Boneyard Scourge, and Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury and make it a mini-theme in R/B! Your cube already has enough dragons to make it "a thing" as it were, and it could provide some fun gameplay. In my cube, Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury also serves as a fun top-end for aggro decks, even if it's the only dragon they're playing!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top