Dom Harvey
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A very cool/weird card that I'm obliged to mention in any retrace convo
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- Thread starter Jason Waddell
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A very cool/weird card that I'm obliged to mention in any retrace convo
Red gets the best retrace cards.
Yes I'm including
Kills Birds. Kills Lions. Turns lands into triggers for spellcasting and discard abilities.
... Turns all your lands into Lightning Bolts and Arc Trails with one low investment of three mana.
Cenn's Enlistment is fine, nothing amazing, just kinda gums up the ground until you have overwhelming numbers or an Inspired Charge - a little dull tbh. Have a fair few creatures with Trample and Flying if you're going to include it is my advice.
Syphon Life goes in B/x aggro as your 23rd playable and gives you a bit of reach or slight advantage in an all out race - it's utterly unplayable in control because it does nothing that a 4/4 flyer (Or a Child of Night) wouldn't do better.
Yes I'm including
Kills Birds. Kills Lions. Turns lands into triggers for spellcasting and discard abilities.
... Turns all your lands into Lightning Bolts and Arc Trails with one low investment of three mana.
Cenn's Enlistment is fine, nothing amazing, just kinda gums up the ground until you have overwhelming numbers or an Inspired Charge - a little dull tbh. Have a fair few creatures with Trample and Flying if you're going to include it is my advice.
Syphon Life goes in B/x aggro as your 23rd playable and gives you a bit of reach or slight advantage in an all out race - it's utterly unplayable in control because it does nothing that a 4/4 flyer (Or a Child of Night) wouldn't do better.
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The only Retrace cards that I could actually see running are:
Oona's Grace might seem weird, but it's basically "all your lands have Cycling
". It's something I'd play in a slow, grindy cube. Raven's Crime + Life from the Loam is basically a viable control deck by itself, and the Skybreaker is actually a pretty decent payoff for a particular kind of ramp deck.
The red Retrace cards, on the other hand, are just solid cards.
Shout out to Wrenn and Six for being the reason we can't have nice things!
Oona's Grace might seem weird, but it's basically "all your lands have Cycling
". It's something I'd play in a slow, grindy cube. Raven's Crime + Life from the Loam is basically a viable control deck by itself, and the Skybreaker is actually a pretty decent payoff for a particular kind of ramp deck.The red Retrace cards, on the other hand, are just solid cards.
Shout out to Wrenn and Six for being the reason we can't have nice things!
I used to run Oona's Grace and it's sadly overcosted by
for my cube - but Spitting Image can be pretty fun. Apart from that hard agree on everything, especially W&6.
I once won a game by making five or six Gelectrodes with Spitting Image. That was nasty, as each copy triggered the ones I already had. It was a good day.
Man, I really want them to revisit retrace. Or make good jump-start cards.
Man, I really want them to revisit retrace. Or make good jump-start cards.
I completely agree that in most cubes LadyMapi's list + Spitting Image as Karshtakavaar mentions are the I ly real considerations, but man do I wish we had more if only to make Burning Vengeance viable for cube.
With the recent surveil changes, and for a lower powered environment, which do you prefer?
vs.
Note that Devourer works with self-mill, surveil, (other niche cards), and is a self-enabler. Spybug gets a more permanent boost but is easier to deal with for creature heavy decks (not necessarily a bad thing).
vs. Note that Devourer works with self-mill, surveil, (other niche cards), and is a self-enabler. Spybug gets a more permanent boost but is easier to deal with for creature heavy decks (not necessarily a bad thing).
I feel like Devourer is cooler, especially if you can support it? I had a pretty janky casual deck from around TBD came out that used it with Grave Strength.
Yeah... and would it kill them to make some good Retrace cards in Green or White? I really want a Cultivate with retrace.
With the recent surveil changes, and for a lower powered environment, which do you prefer?
Note that Devourer works with self-mill, surveil, (other niche cards), and is a self-enabler. Spybug gets a more permanent boost but is easier to deal with for creature heavy decks (not necessarily a bad thing).
I mean, with Menace and Flying Spybug is basically unblockable already, and it carries equipment real well. The issue I have is even with the extra surveil cards, I don't know if there are enough to grow it to a relevant size - And we don't have printings of the new ones with the Surveil text, so confusion yay.
Like, a draft deck with Dogged Detective, Blood Operative, Foul Watcher, Nightveil Sprite, Dimir Spybug, Otherworldy Gaze and maybe Whisper Agent sounds sweet but that eats up a lot of cube space for a group of cards that also have to be worth it in other decks. I would draft the shit out of that archetype though.
Devourer on the other hand is pretty self-reliant - but way less cool.
I kinda feel like that highlights why we dont have good Retrace cards in Green and White.
| What do green spells do? - Make one of your creatures bigger - Tutor lands into hand or play - Tutor creatures into hand or play - Return cards from graveyard to hand - Destroy non-creature, non-land permanents - Make a bunch of small tokens - Make one big token - Destroy creatures with flying - Make creatures fight - Gain life | What do white spells do? - Make all of your creatures bigger - Protect a creature - Tap creatures - Conditionally destroy or exile creatures - Destroy enchantments and artifacts - Return creatures, artifacts or enchantments from graveyard to play - Make a bunch of small tokens - Symmetrical destruction of any permanent type and other Balance effects - Prevent attacks or damage - Gain life |
Most of those seem pretty unfun with Retrace. On the other hand, like all of red's design space in instants and sorceries apart from LD is pretty fine with Retrace
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Cultivate with retrace could be activated a maximum of four times and realistically twice before you just don't hit land drops to make it go anymore. That would be a cool way to thin your deck, though.
Sidebar: Regrowth with retrace would be a cute way to enable storm.
I think that while the removal options are a bad idea unless they're sorcery speed and cost a ton, a lot of the other modes you list, Karshtakavaar, are fairly reasonable. For instance, a repeatable (sorcery-speed) buff shouldn't be insurmountable, nor would a land tutor. A flicker effect with retrace is probably fine, as is a reasonable amount of lifegain (like 2 life for 3 mana or something).
Sidebar: Regrowth with retrace would be a cute way to enable storm.
I think that while the removal options are a bad idea unless they're sorcery speed and cost a ton, a lot of the other modes you list, Karshtakavaar, are fairly reasonable. For instance, a repeatable (sorcery-speed) buff shouldn't be insurmountable, nor would a land tutor. A flicker effect with retrace is probably fine, as is a reasonable amount of lifegain (like 2 life for 3 mana or something).
I still think I like Devourer of Memor more for the time being. The better base stats, ability to be completely unblockable, and self-enabling is pretty cool. Spybug probably needs another 15 or more Cubable surveil cards to surpass Devourer.With the recent surveil changes, and for a lower powered environment, which do you prefer?
vs.
How much mana would you pay for any of those effects though? I was thinking about Regrowth with Retrace while writing the post and going "At what cost is this okay?" 2 is way too cheap, Regrowth as is is a very strong card. 3 seems to low to me, as recursive Midrange decks would jam it in and it'd get real dull dealing with the 7th copy of insert frustrating 4/5 with an ETB here - or worse, a planeswalker. 4 is waaaaay too much for you to want it in the decks where it's most interesting - storm, as you say. I mean, Lay of the Land with Retrace does the storm enabling thing too (Admittedly worse), but is so gross with anything that cares about lands hitting the bin, discard triggers, spellcasting triggers.... And it also makes sure you don't have dead draws at the same time. You just have to put up with all the shuffling.
Sorcery speed Inspired Charge in white or green would be fine, even at 4 mana. Flickering at instant speed with retrace is gross against removal and repetitive with any decent ETB effect - look at how Ephemerate absolutely wrecks face, and imagine that happening every turn for the rest of the game. 2 life for 3 mana is just Syphon Life but worse. Tapping creatures down in white may be okay. Definitely not Fog effects (Another one I forgot to mention that both colours get).
It's not that white or green can't have retrace cards. I just think that any of the retrace cards they would get can't help but be over or undercosted.
Sorcery speed Inspired Charge in white or green would be fine, even at 4 mana. Flickering at instant speed with retrace is gross against removal and repetitive with any decent ETB effect - look at how Ephemerate absolutely wrecks face, and imagine that happening every turn for the rest of the game. 2 life for 3 mana is just Syphon Life but worse. Tapping creatures down in white may be okay. Definitely not Fog effects (Another one I forgot to mention that both colours get).
It's not that white or green can't have retrace cards. I just think that any of the retrace cards they would get can't help but be over or undercosted.
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They'd probably end up making a Sorcery-speed flicker for and a nonland version of Nature's Spiral for .
and a nonland version of Nature's Spiral for .Yeah this is how I feel as well, Spybug would fit into a Cube that has Surveil as a main theme, but it wouldn't work if it just has a couple cards, whereas Devourer is easier to fit into any lower powered Cube that has a "dump librarby into graveyard" archetype.
Thank you @Karshtakavaar for listing the effects
Of those (green ones) I would like to see:
Instant: Mutagenic Growth
Sorcery: Nature's Spiral
Sorcery: Prey Upon
None of these would have to be any higher rarity than uncommon.
They would be fun for limited, useful for some Standard decks probably and interesting for cubes.
Maybe also a Cultivate at but a lot less because it would be automatic to cast this spell if you had nothing else to do with your mana that turn because it's a strict upgrade from playing the land.
Of those (green ones) I would like to see:
Instant: Mutagenic Growth Sorcery: Nature's Spiral Sorcery: Prey UponNone of these would have to be any higher rarity than uncommon.
They would be fun for limited, useful for some Standard decks probably and interesting for cubes.
Maybe also a Cultivate at
but a lot less because it would be automatic to cast this spell if you had nothing else to do with your mana that turn because it's a strict upgrade from playing the land.Of those (white ones) I would like to see:
Instant: Target creature you control gains ward 2 until end of turn.
Sorcery: Disenchant
Sorcery: Ethereal Guidance
Also none of these would have to be rare or mythic.
Instant: Target creature you control gains ward 2 until end of turn. Sorcery: Disenchant Sorcery: Ethereal GuidanceAlso none of these would have to be rare or mythic.
Gravecreeper
Creature - Plant Zombie
Gravecreeper enters the battlefield tapped
Retrace
2/1
I mean, I'd play that.
Creature - Plant Zombie
Gravecreeper enters the battlefield tapped
Retrace
2/1
I mean, I'd play that.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
The problem with really good value retrace effects is that they get repetitive. I don't know how cool a G-retrace-zzly bear is going to be in practice
yeah that's basically the main design flaw with retrace. If it's good you'll just want to do it any time you have the option of doing it. On a creature it's less bad, because it typically has to die/be sacced in order for it to be repetitive in the first place. I think Gravecreeper would make an interesting intersection of a sac deck and a LftL type of deck, but you'd need a few more pieces to really make work.