Chris Taylor
Contributor
Possibly the cutest thing to combine with approach of the second sun
Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Grillo_Parlante
- Start date
See this in Alfonzos cube, and it seems like a cute mash up of lay of the land and artifact synergies. Tempted to try it out myself. Digging five is quite good, and always having that fallback of getting a land (any land!) makes it passable in quite a few formats imo.
What's the number of artifacts you'd need in a cube to regularly hit with this? And is there enough incentive to be green and into artifacts, thematically?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
You're usually playing ~40% lands in a deck, so on average you're hitting two targets on lands alone. I don't think you needs a lot of (colorless!) artifacts at all, just a few good ones worth getting.
I'd think if you'd need to have 2 -3 decent colorless targets in your deck for it to be worth it. Eldrazi, lands, artifacts....grabbing lands really saves this card. I should probably run it.
Some cards that I'd be excited to dig for:
It'd also be great in Simic Storm, ripping a Bauble for 2 spells for G....or Oath, grabbing Scroll Rack or a man land.
Some cards that I'd be excited to dig for:
It'd also be great in Simic Storm, ripping a Bauble for 2 spells for G....or Oath, grabbing Scroll Rack or a man land.
I have ancient stirrings primarily as another way for green to get lands that doesn't push too much ramp. But it's also another nod to building Artifact based decks, even though it isn't deep in green. For the Simic build you often want to look to artifacts for removal though, and it really helps there:
Chris Taylor
Contributor
A lot of the good ideas for artifact centric drafting hinge quite heavily on colored artifacts though.
Drafting gets weird when your best cards are colorless
Drafting gets weird when your best cards are colorless
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I think you would ideally want fetches in the mana base. In a singleton format, no one wants to accidentally cuck themselves by sending some critical card to the BOL. I know my drafters would be shy of it for that reason.
I have some players who feel the same. I think it dumb, but it's there.
I would think formats without fetches generally also have lower overall power levels and/or more focus on synergy. With more focus on synergy, there shouldn't be as many/any "critical" cards in the deck. But I do totally get that psychological aspect, even if it is technically meaningless (you might also dig yourself 5 closer to a powerful card, or even pull one with it). Alfonzo's format doesn't have fetches and it feels at least decent there.
That's something which doesn't really occur to me, but I can see how some players might think that now you mention it. Green us pretty deece with shuffling anyway, even without fetches
I can't really relate to this beyond a simple "aw shucks" if it happens....let alone allowing that to dissuade me from running the card.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Eh, it’s about the same. Especially if you run interesting build arounds, people wants to play those cards generally, and will shy away from interactions that could prevent them from playing them.
I know you didn’t say this, but I want to stress that it’s important not to frame this way of thinking as “dumb.” The psychological reality of the draft is more real than the mathematical one.
For most players, it’s better to lose interestingly with rise from the tidess, than win boringly with a lay from the land varient.
In these casual draft formats, winning is more a pleasant consequence of creativity, rather than something to be pursued at creativity’s expense. If your framework is to pursue a creative goal, which you invested your draft into, you’re not going to want to run utility cards that might derail your vision’s execution, even if those utility cards might make you statistically more likely to win the game.
That’s why I had such a hard time pushing cards like mulch or satyr wayfinder without sufficient graveyard recursion. The players were mapping them out as obstacles to their deck’s overall strategy, not as enablers. And that perspective wasn’t wrong—I was just misunderstanding the reality behind their drafting.
I don't think it's important to not consider it dumb, as long as you know that it's affecting people's picks and level of fun in the experience.
It's still dumb. It has a very small effect on your odds of drawing a specific card, so unless you're tutoring, it probably shouldn't be a factor in whether you draft or cast the card.
There is of course, the chance that the you bury the card you wanted, which is a potential feel-bad. Depends on your players, I guess. I don't believe most of my players(not that I have a play group right now) feel bad about having to show their hand. We feel bad when we make mistakes.
But I definitely do have a player who would stop playing ancient stirrings if he buried a card he needed. He's also really bad at card evaluation, thinks he has bad luck, and loses when he plays against good players. Because of bad luck, of course.
But I still keep him in mind when evaluating cards, because I want him to have fun too.
I understand the psychological aspect, but I have to disagree that Ancient Stirrings comes at creativity's expense. In fact it's a tool that can unlock synergy by finding a build-around artifact or land. In addition, it invites cool plays and corner cases. Shuffle effects can give you another chance at those cards, the card reordering can matter in a long game, or it could help you orchestrate your lab man win.
If your playgroup feels strongly about the psychologic effect, I could see replacing it. But I think for most groups, it's at least worth a trial run.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Yes, thats all true. Both perspectives on the card can be true at the same time.
All I'm saying is that people are really bad at judging probability, and that even if they judge it correctly, they may not even care. Thats pretty much to be expected, and something to think about when deciding if the card is a good fit for your playgroup. One of the nice things about the card is that you can get a pretty good sense of how its going to be recieved by just asking your playgroup's opinion. All you really need to know is the extent they might be bothered by the BOL interactions.
I think once you are green lite there, you're set.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
What are the most fun common or uncommon cards to combo with this guy?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
That looks hot. I was also thinking some of the new explore creatures from Iaxlin--feeds the gy at the same time and all that.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Is this a deck in pauper cube?
Also,
Thats just cruel
You probably mean peasant, but yeah this is a thing in my cube, although I was not aware of cache raiders. Nice find.
Is this a deck in pauper cube?
Also,
Thats just cruel