Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Grillo_Parlante
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We do have a Portuguese site if you're interested, Mapi.Maybe learning portuguese will be easier
So, I've been playing a little jumpstart lately, as it's a nice way to get a game in when you've got only fiveteen minutes of free time. My latest deck is Well-Read Goblins, which gave me this guy:
I always assumed this guy was way too good for my cube, but in the lower powered jumpstart meta, I didn't even always want to cast him when I could. Part of the reason was that I was scared of getting him killed too quickly, but another part was that a 3/3 that takes two more turns to become good wasn't even that great.
Maybe this was only the case because of half my deck not being about goblins? How good is this card in a low-mid powered cube with a goblin theme in red? Is he even better than Goblin Trashmaster?
I always assumed this guy was way too good for my cube, but in the lower powered jumpstart meta, I didn't even always want to cast him when I could. Part of the reason was that I was scared of getting him killed too quickly, but another part was that a 3/3 that takes two more turns to become good wasn't even that great.
Maybe this was only the case because of half my deck not being about goblins? How good is this card in a low-mid powered cube with a goblin theme in red? Is he even better than Goblin Trashmaster?
It has very high variance and is often a dud and often a removal check. In my cube it was just bad on average because it's easy to deal with a 4-drop 3/3 profitably, and half the time it wasn't even worth killing. Rarely, things aligned so that it ran with the game.
It was a useful card for me to reason about why I don't like snowballing value. It's not that it's too good - pretty sure it was a mistake to run it even in goblins at some point - it's that win-more cards lead to fewer swings in who is ahead, while cards good when you're behind lead to more back and forth. I like the latter, but Krenko is strongly the former.
It was a useful card for me to reason about why I don't like snowballing value. It's not that it's too good - pretty sure it was a mistake to run it even in goblins at some point - it's that win-more cards lead to fewer swings in who is ahead, while cards good when you're behind lead to more back and forth. I like the latter, but Krenko is strongly the former.
I'm not sure I write see it like that. I like Krenko. Unless you're heavily goblins it takes some time to get going and whilst it might have some inevitability it takes time to get there and it's interactable with. Yeah it doesn't help too much if you're behind but it's a route to victory that can be quite fun.
Maybe just give it a try? I don't think Japan is wrong, it depends on the speed of your environment, your removal, natural number of other goblins etc. If your red fours are expected to end the game very quickly then it might not be for you, but for me it's a way to make a bunch of tokens to combo off with them in a way that gives the opportunity of interaction.
I tried Krenko in a Legacy cube for a while (2 years?), and it was a removal check for sure, because it'd tap for usually 2-3 Goblins the first time around, threatening to do much worse. When we were cubing with Bloodline Keeper for a long time and it was about as good as the front side. It never really "went off" and by its second year was a last pick more often than not, I think I really took too long to remove it, even if I've been pushing Red as the "token" color.
In a lower-powered environment than a 720 Legacy-ish cube, I think it's interesting, but if Red is primarily an aggressive color in your list (which, yeah), it's probably going to be a bit out-of-place at best and feel contrary to what its fellow goblins are trying to do. You'd need a really specific environment, and from my testing, it's not even in the token-heavy builds.
In a lower-powered environment than a 720 Legacy-ish cube, I think it's interesting, but if Red is primarily an aggressive color in your list (which, yeah), it's probably going to be a bit out-of-place at best and feel contrary to what its fellow goblins are trying to do. You'd need a really specific environment, and from my testing, it's not even in the token-heavy builds.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Of all the effects I'd be okay with giving my opponent a choice on (Which is basically none FWIW), a sweeper is in LAST place
What do you want to use this for?What are people's opinions of
I think it's one of those cards that don't work. Not work on a "this card is bad" level, but on a "this card does not work mechanically".What are people's opinions of
This is not just a low power card, but I suspect it scales to power level since discarding a card is a heftier cost when card advantage isn't easy to come by. I have never played it though, so wanted to know what you think of it. The main reason I'm considering it is that I'm looking to extend graveyard to be a five color archetype in the Elegant Cube (currently graveyard/madness is UBR and looks like this: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/elegant?f=tag:graveyard+tag:core&view=spoiler). Hallowblade seems high agency, but I worry it might be hard to interact with for the opponent (thought blocking it seems alright).
hallowblade is real good and creates big problems for opponents who can’t get around the indestructible activation. and it’s a good discard outlet if you’re doing that but truly it’s just a big sturdy bopper.
EDIT: i ran it at 360 but cut it because it signals aggro too hard and i am now mono midrange.
EDIT: i ran it at 360 but cut it because it signals aggro too hard and i am now mono midrange.
I really like Hallowblade. So much so that I was thinking of adding another. It does everything I'd want and aggressive white 2 drop to do. The discard for value part hasn't come up as often as I'd hoped tho. Wx just doesn't tend to have that critical mass of graveyard value cards.
Still a great and interesting card.
Still a great and interesting card.
Hallowblade is good but remember it's terrible against tokens.
How good is this card? I run eleven fetches (full cycle + one evolving wilds), sixteen cycle lands (including ash barrens, the mono color onslaught ones and the bicycles completed with "customs"), six canopy lands (including a rakdos custom), two man lands and seven lands that sac themselves for effects (including four colorless ones as well as Monument to Folly and Cabal Pit). That adds up to 42 lands that can bin themselves for value, not to mention the selfmill theme in black. In my 680 cards cube that makes for an as fan of ~0,93 per pack.
TLDR: It shouldn't be hard to make this a draw two. But how good is it then?
How good is it to draw two cards? Pretty good. Not as good as being able to dig for lands on turn two (though this can fetch a fetch if necessary). It helps diversify black a bit too which is nice.
It's a bad card.
The main reason to play 2-mana draw spells is that they allow you to smooth over your initial hand. They can find an extra spell or a land at the cost of a very valuable turn. On raw power, these spells are pretty low on the list. You'll lose a lot of games because you played Night's Whisper on turn 2 instead of a relevant card. So losing on a bit of power is quite the hit.
Grim Discovery doesn't allow you to improve your initial hand. It needs a fetch on the graveyard to draw you another land and it will take some time until an interesting creature makes it there. If it's the early game, you won't be able to draw two. If it's the mid game, the land may be useful but but the 2 mana expense on the animate dead effect will matter a lot. And if it's the end game, sure, you get both effects but by then a card like this is pretty weak. You could have used the slot for something bigger.
I feel you'll often draw the card and wish it had been a land instead.
The main reason to play 2-mana draw spells is that they allow you to smooth over your initial hand. They can find an extra spell or a land at the cost of a very valuable turn. On raw power, these spells are pretty low on the list. You'll lose a lot of games because you played Night's Whisper on turn 2 instead of a relevant card. So losing on a bit of power is quite the hit.
Grim Discovery doesn't allow you to improve your initial hand. It needs a fetch on the graveyard to draw you another land and it will take some time until an interesting creature makes it there. If it's the early game, you won't be able to draw two. If it's the mid game, the land may be useful but but the 2 mana expense on the animate dead effect will matter a lot. And if it's the end game, sure, you get both effects but by then a card like this is pretty weak. You could have used the slot for something bigger.
I feel you'll often draw the card and wish it had been a land instead.
i tried Grim Discovery for a long time and it was just never all that great.
it looks like it would be awesome in double fetch type lists, but if you’re playing with strong cards and strong mana, black wants Night’s Whisper and Painful Truths and Demonic Tutor and Booster Tutor much more than this. as Erik said, these can be cast on curve to get you set up for later turns, where Grim Discovery can’t unless you play pretty all-in dredge.
in a lower power environment that uses some kind of fetchland or cycle land manabase, you might get pretty good mileage out of it but still strictly as a mid-lategame refueling card, not an early game setup card.
it looks like it would be awesome in double fetch type lists, but if you’re playing with strong cards and strong mana, black wants Night’s Whisper and Painful Truths and Demonic Tutor and Booster Tutor much more than this. as Erik said, these can be cast on curve to get you set up for later turns, where Grim Discovery can’t unless you play pretty all-in dredge.
in a lower power environment that uses some kind of fetchland or cycle land manabase, you might get pretty good mileage out of it but still strictly as a mid-lategame refueling card, not an early game setup card.