General Ixlan Spoiler

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I've played it in one cube deck (and one Ixalan draft deck), but I don't think I got an accurate picture from that. It was in a 1v1 "pancake" draft and my deck ended up enough better than his deck that it never felt like Deadeye Tracker made a huge difference. Not to say that it was or wasn't worth the card, but it felt like I could have been down 0.5-1.5 more cards a game and still won. His deck was a mono red artifact synergy deck that didn't come together (I was taking/trashing a lot of cards he needed) and I had a typical UB control deck with removal + card draw + finishers. In general, control tends to be tough for synergy decks when they aren't focused enough. But in this case, I also had Inquisition of Kozilek, Hymn to Tourach, and Tasigur, the Golden Fang which were all problems for him on their own.

In theory though, it felt good to have in my deck and in my cube---perhaps more so than it would for others because of how my cube is set up. My cube has no planeswalkers, which makes repeatable value sources like this better in comparison. My cube also opts for more value threats than average, many of which derive their power from the graveyard, so a poor man's Deathrite Shaman still has a lot of value. In general, I try to include as much maindeck-able graveyard hate/exile effects as possible. On top of that, the sizing in my cube might be smaller than average and with fewer large flyers, so I think there is more combat interaction and thus Deadeye Tracker's body is more relevant here than it might be elsewhere.

(Note: CubeTutor link and blog are out of date.)
 
sigh

sigh

Sounds like a well-placed card in your format. It's interesting you bring up planeswalkers, because that really goes to show how much of a damper they can put on other forms of incremental value generation, and inversely what their absence can enable. I think removing almost half of the walkers from my format a couple months back was probably the single healthiest step taken for my format overall.

Brings to mind this pretty lady:

Who has merits in discard synergy, but is overshadowed by the majority of the red walkers because they provide their value for free.
 
Fulcrum

Fulcrum

Thanks to everyone who replied in regards to Deadeye Tracker. A lot of you are echoing my initial thought that the tracker is probably not good enough or just too slow.

I've played with it once in Ixalan limited where it traded with a 1 toughness creature. I didn't think much of it until the end of the game when my opponent said, "I'm glad that died, it could've really taken over the game."

I found it interesting that a lot of the responses compared it to Deathrite Shaman and Grim Lavamancer. I saw it as being more similar to cards like Merfolk Looter or Sensei's Diving Top (I know both of these cards are way way better). i.e. a way for grindy black decks to filter their draws in the late game or even end up with additional cards even if they're just lands. Actual draw spells are probably better but I like that the tracker isn't a one shot effect and then there's the whole thing about auras and equipment.
 
ravnic

ravnic

So far I've got test results from Treasure Map and Captain Lannery Storm in my list. My pal played the Map in a green based 4-color midrange deck, where it was super fun. It filtered his draws for little effort, then ramp him up and drew him 3 cards. Flavor homerun too. Lannery was part of my Boros aggro lis last weekend. I didn't even cast her on curve, but she was still great. Turn 4 the pirate lady, attack, get a treasure, post combat Krenko's Command. Turn 5 I attacked again and used the treasure and my 5 lands to triple activate Leonin Sun Standard. GG. Both are strong but not too strong and flavorful cards, and they will be long term additions.

I'm still trying to get some dinos into my cube though.
 
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