Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight

[inscho]

Okay, maybe this one. Caught my attention when LSV drafted the New MtGO pro tour cube. Opinions?

I'm a fan of Processor, and I've considered adding it as a combo payoff for tinker....I think it's pretty fair in an environment with a lot of artifact removal, flickerwisps and bounce that can target permanents. There's a tension regarding how much life to risk if there's a chance it just gets blown up...the tokens don't have trample. But I agree that it's probably not appropriate for most low power cubes.

 

[ravnic]

You know, I'm going for this Simic Lands theme ...




Could this card here be a worthy pay off? It really sucks, that they get everything back when it dies, but if they don't kill it soon, the game should be over. My cube has a lot of big dudes that fail the terminate test, and the removal density is a bit lower than in most. Also, blue has counterspells to protect this. I'm kinda talking myself into it, please stop me if you think I'm making a mistake

 

[ahadabans]

High risk/high reward type of card. Depends on if you like how those play. If they kill it right away, you probably lose. If they don't, you probably win the game. If your cube has a lot of removal, this card will die too often to justify paying that cost. It will go undrafted. If it has too little removal, the card will probably feel oppressive. And even if you have the right amount, it's still basically a removal check.

My feeling is that I only get a couple slots for high cost cards like this, so the bar these have to clear is pretty high. For me, it doesn't get there. But I tend to cube at a slightly higher power level than the average Riptide cube, so YMMV.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

How good do you guys think this is? I can see it being ok in a control deck.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

How good do you guys think this is? I can see it being ok in a control deck.

The problem is that it's probably better to just run an additional draw spell in your 450. I mean, yeah, it's a signal that there's a spells matter theme in your cube, but I don't think it's a very appealing one.



(Nice... a screenshot with a mouse pointer :') )

 

[sigh]

It's certainly not as simple as that; mana flexibility over raw efficiency means something too. You can't draw 1 card across X different turns with Mind Spring, you have to spend up to an entire turn just for that effect once, and at sorcery speed. The primary issue I have with Trail of Evidence is timing. What happens if you draw it turn 9? Divination can still draw the same 2 cards as turn 3, but Trail is potentially dead in the water.

Unless you have, say, an artifact archetype that could really benefit from the sac fodder, I'd probably go for something that directly works on closing the game like Talrand, Sky Summoner or the new Murmuring Mystic

 

[ravnic]

I wanted to talk about a card, that I see in basically no cube list ever, even though it is imo one of the most exiting/explosive aggressive 2-drops red has to offer ...



That innocent looking redhead is especially mean in gowide aggro decks, where I had crazy turns with her, like attacking for 6 or 7 trample damage the opponent didn't expect. But even when you don't have the token spells and armys-in-a-can to make her that absurd, she still is great. She regularly attacks on turn 3 as a 4/1 trample. And it's not only one turn, she hits for 3-4 for a few more turn usually, as long as aggro needs it to close out games.

Yes, 1 toughness is not really robust, but thanks to trample and the temporary nature of her pump ability, opponents really don't want to block her. If worst comes to worst, she can still swing with the team as a piker. When this happens, it is usually turn 5+ and she already caused 6-8 damage before. Or it is when you top deck her later, which sucks, but then there is still hope topdeck another creature to get a 3/1 trample at least, better than any one drop you could've topdecked.

I would play this girl in every cube, where aggro decks revolve around creatures (16+, including token producing spells), even in higher powered cubes, maybe even the highest powered ones. And I would for sure pick her every day over some generic 3/2 like Gorehouse Chainwalker. This girl is on fiiiirree.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It's certainly not as simple as that; mana flexibility over raw efficiency means something too. You can't draw 1 card across X different turns with Mind Spring, you have to spend up to an entire turn just for that effect once, and at sorcery speed. The primary issue I have with Trail of Evidence is timing. What happens if you draw it turn 9? Divination can still draw the same 2 cards as turn 3, but Trail is potentially dead in the water.

Unless you have, say, an artifact archetype that could really benefit from the sac fodder, I'd probably go for something that directly works on closing the game like Talrand, Sky Summoner or the new Murmuring Mystic

Yeah, that was just one angle I wanted to highlight, that it was very inefficient. Of course it's easier to spend mana over the course of 10 turns, but you still need to trigger the card a lot of times to even get to that point!

 

[Peter LaCara]

I wanted to talk about a card, that I see in basically no cube list ever, even though it is imo one of the most exiting/explosive aggressive 2-drops red has to offer ...



That innocent looking redhead is especially mean in gowide aggro decks, where I had crazy turns with her, like attacking for 6 or 7 trample damage the opponent didn't expect. But even when you don't have the token spells and armys-in-a-can to make her that absurd, she still is great. She regularly attacks on turn 3 as a 4/1 trample. And it's not only one turn, she hits for 3-4 for a few more turn usually, as long as aggro needs it to close out games.

Yes, 1 toughness is not really robust, but thanks to trample and the temporary nature of her pump ability, opponents really don't want to block her. If worst comes to worst, she can still swing with the team as a piker. When this happens, it is usually turn 5+ and she already caused 6-8 damage before. Or it is when you top deck her later, which sucks, but then there is still hope topdeck another creature to get a 3/1 trample at least, better than any one drop you could've topdecked.

I would play this girl in every cube, where aggro decks revolve around creatures (16+, including token producing spells), even in higher powered cubes, maybe even the highest powered ones. And I would for sure pick her every day over some generic 3/2 like Gorehouse Chainwalker. This girl is on fiiiirree.

Y'know, I had considered her when I put together my very first iteration of my cube, but dismissed her for being too fragile. That was before I settled on tokens as a theme for RW. I ought to give her a second chance, considering that I am still running snoozers like Gore-House Chainwalker.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

How good do you guys think this is? I can see it being ok in a control deck.

So...this is an interesting card to discuss, and this is probably going to be a rough articulation.

In a vacuum, you shouldn't run this card, but this is purely the product of the way that cubes today are generally designed. However, its a card that has untapped potential, if put in the right framework.

In most cubes now, for a variety of reasons, cards cannot be overly narrow. The above posters have touched upon some of the reasons for why this matters, but there are a few more regarding the actual draft, and player experience. Basically, once a card becomes overly specialized, even if there is a right place for the card in the cube, you eventually have to worry about it appearing in the wrong places, and causing all kinds of miserable experiences. Think of it like a jaggedslide on a playgroud: yes, if you use it exactly right it might be the best slide ever, but if its ever implimented wrongly, or out of place, it can hurt the people on the play ground.

This card is overly narrow: not in a tremendouly offensive sense, but more that if it shows up at the wrong time or wrong place its a dead card. The more active the format, the harder it is to show up in a way where its not going to be a dud. Because it looks fun, this is disappointing for the player.

But lets pretend for a moment, that we were running a format that is very good at filtering cards, perhaps to the point where it feels very close to every card having cycling attached to it. If we have a lot of these filter affects, than this time problem for certain narrow cards becomes less of an issue: after all, we can just filter it out for a new card, should it show up at a clunky or inopportune time.

Well, this frees things up from a design perspective. Instead of having to childproof everything because we have to assume its going to be eventually misplaced as part of the players' exploratory process, we can instead run a much higher density of normally too narrow cards that do interesting niche things, without the nasty punishing downside.

Now, whether this is an interesting or strong enough niche affect to merit inclusion even in that hypothetical environment is a different topic, but at least thats the framework I think you would have to be working with, to even have the discussion.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

Global enchantments that could either be played as a body or as this type of effect might have a bit more play. Or replace body with conditional removal, or any other thing that might be able to be played and have an immediate impact on the board.

Since wotc seems to be pushing that kind of polymorphic card in other areas, maybe this will happen to these narrow enchantments. They sort of did it with the siege enchantments from khans, but those replace one non-immediate-boardstate-impact effect for another.

This might counteract Chapin’s idea of needing to invest in your cards. But I get the impression that global enchantments don’t see much play relative to how many wizards print, except for in commander. They are basically planeswalkers without the fog effect these days.

 

[ravnic]

Looking for blue cards that interact with Landfall/Lands matter I stumbled upon this:



I'm pretty sure that card would be nice in the lands deck, no question. But how good is that in a control deck with counterspells, removal etc. and only very few creatures? What you guys think?

 

[Rowan_CB]

Looking for blue cards that interact with Landfall/Lands matter I stumbled upon this:



I'm pretty sure that card would be nice in the lands deck, no question. But how good is that in a control deck with counterspells, removal etc. and only very few creatures? What you guys think?

Seems like a good find! I'm going to find room for this in my list--I'll let you know if I get any good testing in with it. Outside of dedicated lands decks, I do think it will be a good tool for control decks against aggro. Potentially in a fun way too, as makes decision-making a little more involved for the aggro player.

 

[ravnic]

I'm going to test it too

Could also imagine, that one being good in a aggro/tempo deck, in my cube maybe -Aggro splashing . Imagine dropping this on turn 3 or 4 on the play alongside a small creature, while the opposing midrange or tapout-control deck just tries it's best to stabilize ... mean.

 

[ravnic]

Y'know, I had considered her when I put together my very first iteration of my cube, but dismissed her for being too fragile. That was before I settled on tokens as a theme for RW. I ought to give her a second chance, considering that I am still running snoozers like Gore-House Chainwalker.

Have you gotten any results so far?

 

[Peter LaCara]

Have you gotten any results so far?

Nah, man. I haven't even been able to do more than a grid draft or two since this post. I need to put together a new cubing group somehow.

 

[dbs]

Looking for blue cards that interact with Landfall/Lands matter I stumbled upon this:



I'm pretty sure that card would be nice in the lands deck, no question. But how good is that in a control deck with counterspells, removal etc. and only very few creatures? What you guys think?

Is this even a low power card? Doesn't it just completely hose any deck that intends to curve out with creatures? Or am I incorrect assessing it by assuming it will come down consistently on turn 2?

 

[Rowan_CB]

Is this even a low power card? Doesn't it just completely hose any deck that intends to curve out with creatures? Or am I incorrect assessing it by assuming it will come down consistently on turn 2?

That could be, and it might be OP. It's the kind of card that's hard to evaluate without testing, and I wonder if anyone has any experience with it. It's likely very environment-dependent. In a combo-heavy environment like yours, I think there's a pretty good chance this is easy to abuse and not fun to play against when it's abused. I think for a lot cubes, most decks fit the description of intending to curve out with creatures, so building around this and breaking that symmetry might require enough sacrifices elsewhere in deckbuilding to alleviate any potential abuse. Not sure.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm just wondering if it is even fun.

 

[Rowan_CB]

I'm always in the market for playable blue cards that return lands to your hand. For those of us with heavy lands themes, blue's niche is returning lands to hand to generate repeated landfall triggers, or discard to Molten Vortex or Flame Jab, etc. The problem is that most of the cards that do this aren't very good (raise a glass to all the OTHER Moonfolk out there).

Outside of that synergy, I'd agree this card doesn't seem particularly fun. And testing may reveal it's not fun with those synergies either.

 

[ravnic]

It's an incredibly hard to evaluate card. I will inform you as soon as I got some testing done

Another question: I figured that Vampire Nighthawk would be too much of a stat monster for my cube and decided not to add it. What I wonder now is, is this guy here maybe okay because the lack of evasion takes away enough of it's raw power?



I just wish there was some middleground between that and Child of Night ...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It's an incredibly hard to evaluate card. I will inform you as soon as I got some testing done

Another question: I figured that Vampire Nighthawk would be too much of a stat monster for my cube and decided not to add it. What I wonder now is, is this guy here maybe okay because the lack of evasion takes away enough of it's raw power?



I just wish there was some middleground between that and Child of Night ...

You have to dip into white for that if you want to stay at cmc 2...



If you go to 3 there's a few options that are less annoying than Vampire Nighthawk.

 

[ravnic]

How much value has this snek girl besides landfall shenanigans?




I am running already Budoka Gardener, but he can be a brutal win con in different green decks. The scout has no other abilities.

 

[dbs]

How much value has this snek girl besides landfall shenanigans?




I am running already Budoka Gardener, but he can be a brutal win con in different green decks. The scout has no other abilities.

I tried way harder than I should have to try to make a non-graveyard-based land combo deck for my cube looking at:



and things of that nature but I just couldn't make it work because:

1. Unlike the graveyard-y loam version the pure land combo stuff is way more poisonous
2. The power level is really uneven: Prime-Time, Azusa, Oracle of Mul-Daya etc are just too good as a midrange-y ramp deck and the pure combo cards are too weak unless you assemble them.
3. There aren't enough pay-offs that can come together in a non-constructed environment.

 

[ravnic]

my landfall archetype is more landfall synergy value style than being a true combo. It has a Loam compjnent, but it's only a small subtheme with LftL, World Shaper, Cycling Lands and Worm Harvest and stuff. The main thing contains cards like these:



That deck seems to work pretty well so far, and I suspect, Sakura-Tribe Scout would be good in it BUT my initial question was, if that card would be playable in some kind of average /x Midrange/Ramp deck, or be doomed to be lands matter only material?