Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight

[ravnic]

Yeah, you read the thread title correctly. I know it's one creature liked much by power max people, but they also like harmless stuff that scales to an environment. So my question is: Does Fauna Shaman scale to the environment? Searching for a Crypt Rats is definitely not the same as searching for a Massacre Wurm or whatever kids these days cube, right? If the discard is no benefit, she doesn't even seem thaaat good to me.

 

[sigh]

Yeah I agree she mostly scales to an environment. There might be a peak in environments where ETB-value-creatures have a disproportionate impact. Would make for an exciting way to build a low-power "toolbox" deck honestly.

 

[Mondschwein]

In a lower powered cube, it's a good card for the etb/blink deck (which typically is UWG) and also helps reanimation/gy matters decks or discard matters. If your list does have enough synergies I'd give it a go, very fun card to play with and obv not nearly as overwhelmingly strong as SotF.

 

[whydirt]

"Cards that scale with your power level" seems like a good topic to have as a thread. I'll try to get something together today or tomorrow if no one beats me to it.

 

[ravnic]

Oh yeah, she fefinitely has synergies, mostly in madness and dredge. I think the strongest lines of play would be something like ...
Discard Stromkirk Occultist and search for Arrogant Wurm
Discard Golgari Grave-Troll and search for Nighthowler
... and I think my environment can handle that.

 

[Brad]

There is technically a strictly better version, but I am the last one who wouldn't justify a card by it's old school coolness.

Also adds quite a bit of text for an occasionally relevant scenario on an otherwise very simple card.


All tutors scale to your power level because they can only search within your power level.

 

[Erik Twice]

Is this low power at all?

 

[Mondschwein]

No

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I tested it and have to agree with Mondschwein. However, it's less overwhelming than Mystic Confluence.

 

[Nanonox]

If you don't mind sorcery speed, I like Inscription of Insight better.



You get more options and late game relevance. It's cheaper too.

 

[Mondschwein]

In a board-centric environment:



I'm searching for +1/+1 counter payoffs that aren't pushing the theme too far ahead. This one is pretty cool as it untaps and grows at instant speed, something similar I already have in my list with Synchronized Strike. Both also trigger Heroic.

 

[Zoss]

Would this also work well? I have no experience with Unity of Purpose, but this always seemed fun to me. Cards + combat trick is nice.

 

[Mondschwein]

There usually aren't many decks that want Inspiring Call. Even if you have a lot of creatures that get +1/+1 counters, you really need a dedicated deck for it to shine.
It can be underwhelming, you want to cycle it and in response your only creature with counters eats a removal, while on the other hand it is potentially breaking a board stall and draw you 3+ cards. I don't know, I just don't like the card and think most of the time it won't show up in the final deck.

 

[ravnic]

Am I crazy for sondiering this as a control finisher? I want to make mill a more common way for blue based control to win, and I am always happy about incidental landfall support. A 4 mana 1/4 flier is almost always a decent blocker, and once you are in the late game with too much mana to actually spend, it seems pretty easy to activate this two or three times on opponent's end step. That is a pretty fast clock in a world of 40 card decks.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Isn't the cost of returning a land pretty damn steep though? I don't think I would ever activate that ability more than once a turn unless I'm going to be able to fully mill them out that turn.

 

[LadyMapi]

Yeah, I feel like your landfall support would have to be really good if you were running the Mindsweeper. I've actually played with it in the past and it... wasn't very good.

If you're looking for ways to make a Blue-based control deck win off of mill, why not try to include some incidental mill wherever you can fit it in?



Or if you just want some nice repeatable mill to abuse in the late game:



And, of course, if you support self-mill as an archetype, we can't forget about this sweet kill condition:

 

[Brad]

Out of date list of mill I considered worth running.
I seem to recall a few more recent printings piqued my interest in mill as a deck. The big downside is that you fuel any opposing graveyard decks.

 

[Erik Twice]

I really believe the Soratamis are extremely weak. They have a massive drawback and weak effects.If I'm drafting control, I don't want my win condition to be a 1/4 flier that requires me to armaggedon myself to mill the opponent. Compare it to Millstone. Do you run a low enough power level to justify Millstone? Because I would say Mindsweeper is worse than that.

Chances are, if you include them in your cube, I'll go out of my way to draft whatever dumb beater you have in blue or other colours and play that instead of going through it. And when it comes to triggering landfall, well, I think there are better ways. Trade Routes is a lovely design and fits much better in control than the alternatives.

 

[Mondschwein]

It really depends. Meloku the Clouded Mirror isn't weak at all, while I could also see Uyo, Silent Prophet to be playable.
I am definitely trying Soratami Cloudskater because of ravnic's posts about it in other threads. So many synergies.
If Mindsweeper would mill three instead of two, I'd find it playable. Two is too weak on a 4drop creature, you won't mill your opponent to death any soon, and there are much more efficient effects for selfmill.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

It really depends. Meloku the Clouded Mirror isn't weak at all

Meloku is really strong despite the steep cost of argmagedoning yourself

 

[Mondschwein]

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say.

 

[ravnic]

Oh yeah, Soratami Cloudskater is my girl. She's like Trade Routes on an evasive body, with the not irrelevant upside to also loot away nonland cards.

Hm, the thing is, it is extremely hard to find mill cards, that have additional overlap with other strategies. And if that's tze case, it is often just in small one shot doses.

 

[LadyMapi]

That's actually part of the reason that I like Fraying Sanity as much as I do.

Sure, on the face of it it's "just" a mill doubler. But it mills them for 1 for every card that was put into their graveyard that turn, regardless of how it got there. So a UB control deck that destroys creatures, forces discards, and counters spells also essentially gets "Villain mills 1" stapled on to all of their cards, on top of milling them whenever they cast an instant or sorcery card.

 

[Mondschwein]

What do you think about Buyback? It's a good way to use your mana later in the game, fueling Prowess or helping other strategies (tokens, control). I never actually played Buyback outside of Mono Blue Control, so I'm asking people to share their experience. I thought about:




The goal of my upcoming cube is to reach a slow environment, and I think some of these can shine in such an environment.
The question is: aren't cards with Flashback or Retrace enough? As I support a lands value.dec, I think those Retrace cards are possibly more interesting. They can still be played by spellsingers.dec.



Maybe combining them is the way to go: Haze of Rage, Mystic Speculation, Slaughter, Flame Jab and Cenn's Enlistment
but I want to make the cube simpler as a whole, so I'd like not to have a bunch of different keywords/abilities in it.

 

[sigh]

Mystic Spec is pretty nice.

Haze of Rage is one of those cards that you wouldn't realize it has Storm until you look at it for a good few seconds. Looks like flavor text. I've found the +1/+0 effect and wanting to be used by aggressive decks is a little at odds with the high cost repeatability feature. And storm just makes it weirder of course.

Flame Jab works great in the lands.dec if you have the right creature make-up in your cube that the repeatable 1 damage can have a real impact.