Often when I play Midnight Reaper it is the first creature my opponent targets with removal, so at least I am up a card on the deal. Haruspex allows my opponent to trade one for one, and often gain a little tempo into the bargain.
General Fight Club
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
the word “another” KILLS haruspex just like Humpty said.
i’m not a huge fan of the word “nontoken” either but that’s just me…
i’m not a huge fan of the word “nontoken” either but that’s just me…
Chris Taylor
Contributor
A brief note: if you want a version of this effect which does actually trigger off tokens, like say for eg if your aristocrats deck uses those 
P) there is one option:
P) there is one option:
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yes, this is a pretty big downgrade because the word "other" is missing from Midnight Reaper. Unless you have some morph theme going on (those require a critical mass to really capture the "what could it be?" vibe), I wouldn't bother with the Haruspex.
Is it a massive downgrade if I run Haruspex instead of Reaper? It's both a human and a wizard and I often wish it had those two types.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
A brief note: if you want a version of this effect which does actually trigger off tokens, like say for eg if your aristocrats deck uses those
The last one isn't exactly the same, but because it can trigger on your turn and there's, it's still friendly with sac outlets, and being one mana cheaper than Moldervine Reclamation and triggering on their stuff dying as well is actually a pretty big deal.
Big Lili is actually pretty sick if you can afford 6 mana in your format
I can confirm Deathreap Ritual is real, but it's no Dark Prophecy or Liliana, Dreadhorde General.
I'd still run Midnight Reaper before every other card mentioned though - goes in the most decks out of all of them.
I have two conundrums (Conundra?) to place before you:
VS
and
VS
In the first case, one will be replacing Insolent Neonate.
In the second, I'm currently running Huntmaster, and have no idea if the swap is a good idea or not. I ask you to bear in mind that Huntmaster tends to transform at least once, and the decks that run or splash for him have a lot of flash threats so they can double-spell or skip a turn without really affecting development, so he can flip back and forth a few times. I just don't know if that outweighs how much Faldorn can do with the Rootwallas and Wurms, the reduced CMC, and how much more reliable Faldorn seems.
I'd still run Midnight Reaper before every other card mentioned though - goes in the most decks out of all of them.
I have two conundrums (Conundra?) to place before you:
VS and
VS In the first case, one will be replacing Insolent Neonate.
In the second, I'm currently running Huntmaster, and have no idea if the swap is a good idea or not. I ask you to bear in mind that Huntmaster tends to transform at least once, and the decks that run or splash for him have a lot of flash threats so they can double-spell or skip a turn without really affecting development, so he can flip back and forth a few times. I just don't know if that outweighs how much Faldorn can do with the Rootwallas and Wurms, the reduced CMC, and how much more reliable Faldorn seems.
I'm on Channeler + Faldorn.
Channeler appears to go into more decks, bridging discard and spell themes with a generally uselful play patter of a red Merfolk Looter. I also dislike how the Theorist just says "everything has madness", makes it less rewarding to actually do the sweet madness combos for real.
Faldorn might not be stronger than Huntmaster, at least I'm not sure about that, but it is for sure the much cooler card. It's also cheaper. But mostly, it works with Madness, which you seem to support in these colors. Note that you get two! tokens with madness potentially, if you can cast both, the exiled card and a discarded one with madness. Also, it works with all kinds of graveyard strategies allright I guess, and has sweet corner cases like casting an adventure creature from there and getting a wolf. It's a card that makes your brain go on a journey during a draft.
Huntmaster is just a wordy double faced dude that boils down to "stats, more stats, fight with stats, stats".
Channeler appears to go into more decks, bridging discard and spell themes with a generally uselful play patter of a red Merfolk Looter. I also dislike how the Theorist just says "everything has madness", makes it less rewarding to actually do the sweet madness combos for real.
Faldorn might not be stronger than Huntmaster, at least I'm not sure about that, but it is for sure the much cooler card. It's also cheaper. But mostly, it works with Madness, which you seem to support in these colors. Note that you get two! tokens with madness potentially, if you can cast both, the exiled card and a discarded one with madness. Also, it works with all kinds of graveyard strategies allright I guess, and has sweet corner cases like casting an adventure creature from there and getting a wolf. It's a card that makes your brain go on a journey during a draft.
Huntmaster is just a wordy double faced dude that boils down to "stats, more stats, fight with stats, stats".
i completely agree with ravnic on these card evals, which doesn’t often happen.
Huntmaster has just never sparked joy for me (i would run one of every art ever printed of BBE before my first Huntmaster), and Channeler is a 4/4 for 2 that can draw you out of bad spots, where conspiracy theorist is… an expert thumb twiddler. (and yes i run Containment Construct but that card lets you play lands you discard which is INSANELY better)
if you like Faldorn, that UR enchantment from 40K does something very similar that may help bolster your archetype.
Huntmaster has just never sparked joy for me (i would run one of every art ever printed of BBE before my first Huntmaster), and Channeler is a 4/4 for 2 that can draw you out of bad spots, where conspiracy theorist is… an expert thumb twiddler. (and yes i run Containment Construct but that card lets you play lands you discard which is INSANELY better)
if you like Faldorn, that UR enchantment from 40K does something very similar that may help bolster your archetype.
It's going to be able to be 4/4 a lot, but I was worried about it leading players into making the wrong call when using it next to Flashback and Delve.
Probably not a good enough reason to not run Red Looter Goyf
.I had been leaning towards the Theorist, but this convinced me.
While I had been leaning towards Faldorn, this helped me realize just how much I had nostalgia goggles for how interesting Huntmaster is to play with.
I do quite like the text on The Lost and the Damned, and the fact its a red build-around enchantment with no immediate board presence would normally guarantee it's inclusion on that basis alone. It's definitely a great recommendation. I'm just not really a fan of Universes Beyond - some AFR and CLB cards squeak past my reactive dislike because they're generic enough that they can get away with just being Magic cards (I can imagine them being reprinted in some future set). Some toe that line by being references obscure enough that I can pretend they aren't from another IP (Consider Faldorn, an obscure NPC companion from the Baldur's Gate videogames, against someone so setting-defining as Elminster or a spell so iconic as Tasha's Hideous Laughter).
Sadly, as much as I love 40k (I even play Tyranids), everything in those decks just makes me feel icky. I love the lore of Deathleaper (In 40k). I love the text on Deathleaper (In Magic). I don't want to play Deathleaper. It's personal and irrational, I know. I'll just wait and hope for a MTG-lore friendly reprint.
Interesting consideration here. I was devastated to take out Huntmaster from my own list, as it was an original member of my Cube back when it was 450 cards and rode me to victory many times in its glory days. I took it out not for power level -- nostalgia would have fought me too hard -- but because I contended that I didn't want different styles of werewolves at the same time, and as sloppy as the Day/Night card can be, the relevance of the new wolves was superior.
I support Jund tokens quite reasonably strongly, and I hadn't considered Faldorn much before because I was worried the concept of playing cards from exile would be too confusing for folks, but the more I'm reading here and reviewing my own list, yeah, there's enough impulse drawing to justify it and to make sense of it for even more casual players. It's a cool card!
I think I may just replace Radha, Heart of Keld with Faldorn, who doesn't support any lands archetype as much as she just goes late in draft and randomly rewards people who happen to be in those colors. Love this forum for opening my eyes to neat cards I might have glossed over because we've gotten 6.2 new cards on average spoiled a day so far this year.
(Also I strongly support the Channeler over Conspiracy Theorist. I thought Conspiracy Theorist was a card made for me but it was too clunky even in the decks doing exactly what it wanted, and Channeler has just been solid across the board in myriad archetypes.)
I'm sad to see him go too, the nostalgia is real - this is the copy of Huntmaster that came out of the same pack as a Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and a foil Vorapede, to the immediate disbelief of all present. All three of those cards saw play in FNM-winning standard decks of mine (Angel of Glory's Rise Pod for the green dudes, Sorin in a Intangible Virtue/Lingering Souls deck). ;c
I'm kind of in the same boat, opposite direction, regarding the new werewolf template. It took a lot of convincing to get me to add Tovolar's Huntmaster and the Night/Day mechanic despite the fact that Green Grave Titan is a slam-dunk for my cube, because I was so attached to the old werewolves (Even though I'm now down to just Mayor of Avabruck, who is well on the way to being cut too) and I also didn't want the confusion.
Yeah this has been my experience exactly. SO many cards, so many interactions and ideas missed or ignored because there's no time to actually think about any of them, and the people over at MTGSal are so blinkered in to a specific type of cube experience.
Thank-you for this take, this is exactly what I needed to hear.
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I've been playing both of these lately, and I think channeler is both cooler and better.I have two conundrums (Conundra?) to place before you:
VS
Easy Huntmaster. It's a cooler, more iconic, and more powerful card that your drafters are more likely to recognize. It is harder to deal with 1 for 1 and still provides value even when you aren't doing anything.VS
I'm building a deck for a Jumpstart style environment. It's around retail limited power level (DMU). This particular deck is aiming to build around these two cards:
Which of these options do you like as a go-wide body maker and rare-level card?
I've not played with Seasoned Pyromancer so it might be way stronger than I'm giving it credit. I'm open to other options as well, preferably in red but the right black card could fit (black is more a light splash in this deck).
Which of these options do you like as a go-wide body maker and rare-level card?
I've not played with Seasoned Pyromancer so it might be way stronger than I'm giving it credit. I'm open to other options as well, preferably in red but the right black card could fit (black is more a light splash in this deck).
PK is a fine card
Seasoned Pyro is NUTS
Seasoned Pyro is NUTS
Yeah Pyromancer is nuts. I like Pia and Kiraan because they're good where you want them, great sometimes, but not an autoinclude in "Deck that can get to " - plus I love Siege-Gang "Go wide, give reach" top ends for red decks that just need to get the last few points of damage in.
OTOH, Seasoned Pyromancer is pretty much the right card to put in your red deck regardless of what you're actually doing in that deck.
Pia and Kiraan tell you what red does in a cube (Though they might be lying). Season Pyromancer tells you "Pick me! Pick Me!". Both are pretty decent things for a rare to say during a draft, so ignoring power level concerns (Pyromancer is nuts) it's kinda just about how you want the draft to feel.
" - plus I love Siege-Gang "Go wide, give reach" top ends for red decks that just need to get the last few points of damage in.OTOH, Seasoned Pyromancer is pretty much the right card to put in your red deck regardless of what you're actually doing in that deck.
Pia and Kiraan tell you what red does in a cube (Though they might be lying). Season Pyromancer tells you "Pick me! Pick Me!". Both are pretty decent things for a rare to say during a draft, so ignoring power level concerns (Pyromancer is nuts) it's kinda just about how you want the draft to feel.
This conversation has been very reassuring to me. I am currently building a Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger Duel Commander deck and was thinking if I wanted to include Seasoned Pyromancer or not. Now I know
decree which way you want them all to work? or ask your draftpals to vote on it b4 the draft!
After some failed experiments with errata-ing cards, not going there again. People who have played with cards remember how they work, and rather than solving an aesthetic problem, you've created a gameplay one where muscle-memory and familiarity screws with your players rather than supporting them.
If I was to do it, they'd have to be totally custom (Name and art) to avoid that issue, and a small set of my players would stop drafting the cube over that.
If I was to do it, they'd have to be totally custom (Name and art) to avoid that issue, and a small set of my players would stop drafting the cube over that.
I have yet another conundra to pose:
VS
Fish has been getting a lot better in my cube, and with the printing of Vodalian Hexcatcher I kinda want to see if Lullmage Mentor has legs.
Plus the two of them + Baral signpost a kind of "Counterspell Tribal" deck. But all of my other Merfolk are either lords, or core components of Bant Flash/Reanimator/Madness, so it'd have to be Master of Waves on the chopping block.
What think you?
VS Fish has been getting a lot better in my cube, and with the printing of Vodalian Hexcatcher I kinda want to see if Lullmage Mentor has legs.
Plus the two of them + Baral signpost a kind of "Counterspell Tribal" deck. But all of my other Merfolk are either lords, or core components of Bant Flash/Reanimator/Madness, so it'd have to be Master of Waves on the chopping block.
What think you?
Personally I think Master of Waves is cooler and less parasitic. I’m not convinced a player is going to be able to leverage the Mentor’s abilities in an average game.I have yet another conundra to pose:
Fish has been getting a lot better in my cube, and with the printing of Vodalian Hexcatcher I kinda want to see if Lullmage Mentor has legs.
Plus the two of them + Baral signpost a kind of "Counterspell Tribal" deck. But all of my other Merfolk are either lords, or core components of Bant Flash/Reanimator/Madness, so it'd have to be Master of Waves on the chopping block.
What think you?