General "Lower-Powered" Pivot Cards

[inscho]

Porting this question over from the An auto-pick in synergy's clothing thread, because it probably deserves its own topic.

I think it'd be helpful to use lower-powered loosely here. For reference, the discussion started to circle around Pia and Kiran Nalaar as a benchmark for a higher-powered glue card due to a combination of its efficiency, flexibility, immediate board impact, total power to cmc ratio, evasion, buildaround quality, cross-archetype support, etc.

MurphysHuman asked

Right, inscho's instinct to remove the high-powered midrange glue from his cube could be understood in two ways:

1. Reducing the density of cards that are high-power and go in any deck of their color
2. Reducing the power level of cards that tie into multiple archetypes

1. runs the risk of putting the draft on-rails; if most cards do not go into every deck of their color, you better be in a specific archetype! 2. is potentially more interesting, but I have been thinking about how a card's power level is increasing in its archetype density. Look at these:



All of them do something that P&K do, but P&K's ability to do all of them at once ends up increasing its abstract power level. What are some cards that have very high archetype density but a lower power level than the cards discussed here?

Some cards that I consider to be strong pivot cards that appeal to multiple archetypes that aren't as objectively powerful as P&K:



Some of these (Syr Konrad, Emry) clearly have as high or higher ceilings as a P&K, but they don't have the same level of immediate payoff and/or efficiency imo.

The fabricate creatures too since they all support go-wide, blink, sacrifice, artifacts, and counters:


The jump-start mechanic is great as it appeals thematically to spells matters, gravecast, discard matters, and self-mill:


etc

The escape cards fit the bill as they overlap self-mill, gravecast, counters/spells/enchantments matter:

etc....In addition to whatever other attributes they bring to the table

I've obviously emphasized the ER in lower, because a lot of these aren't exactly low-powered....but feel free to go as low as you'd like here.

What are some your favorite lower-powered pivot cards?

 

[ravnic]

Some of my favorites




Supports lifegain and dredge, is great roadblock for control decks and works as a 2-powered, pseudo-evasive dork for ninjutsu or other aggressive decks in my cube.




For the boros gowide decks it is two bodies in a cheap package. For the slower token decks it is also two bodies to pump with anthems or to block, even with a little lifegain attached. The lifegain on a cheap creature is also sweet for the (aggressive) decks that care about this.




It is a great finisher for the wildfire deck, a huge payoff for sacrifice/recursion decks. It's also just a solid roadblock/finisher in any control deck, as it works nicely with boardwipes and the like.




A recent addition that already took everyones hearts with a few appearances. It is a very threatening curvetopper for (mandness) aggro decks, an undercosted beater for decks with a high spell velocity, and don't even let me start on the degenerate thing he can do in a dedicated dredge deck (that drawback you see there? It's actually an upside).




This is my favorite card. period. It is a great, flexible beater for all kinds of aggressive decks, works double duty in ninjutsu decks (evasion and bounce value) and is another piece of recursion for sacrifice/dredge. It also comes in the super beautiful storybook version!

 

[MurphysHuman]

I think this topic is very interesting, because as I said in the other thread, increasing the density of a card's archetype support usually has the consequence of increasing its overall power level.



gets you two spell casts, blink triggers (but only for the cheaper blink targets), it can safely be milled in a self-mill deck, it can get fetches back. But it never feels overwhelming, because it's slow enough and its targets small enough. I love it!



was mentioned in the jump-start section above, but I think it deserves a special shout-out. EtBs, tribal payoffs, doubling up on any creature-based triggers (Blood Artist). Very flexible, but really only ever feels as oppressive as its strongest target. Does feel a little egregious when you can copy big EtBs like Shriekmaw or Mulldrifter, but hopefully in a lower-power environment the creatures are less swingy than that.



also scales well with the environment. When you're running strong burn this can just end the game, but if you have to work harder or wait longer for the payoff, it invites creativity from your drafters. Try ramping with it in a Wildfire deck, or drawing a lot of cards, or making tokens!



If your environment can do anything with lands or counters/proliferation, this feels great. Provides reach without slamming the door, and generates some risk/reward tension on how deep to go with the sacrifices.

 

[inscho]

I don't know how I forgot Sevinne's Reclamation....it's easily one of my favorite cards in recent printing.

I'm experimenting with Quasiduplicate in a lower powered draft, and I'm liking it so far. It's especially fun in decks I have that are heavy mill and recur something interesting via Dread Return or maybe Skaab Ruinator....

Howl of the Horde looks very interesting. I've wanted to run increasing vengeance at various times. but I love the incentive to attack.

I've been intrigued by Razerunner, and it's been on a shortlist as I've wanted to exploit Verge Rangers, Weathered Wayfarer and Cartographer's Hawk. It can easily survive Wildfire. I think it works in my new draft.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Thanks for suggesting this one. It somehow escaped my radar. In the second game I playtested it, the only flyer my opponent had out was a Stormwild Capridor (which I added to have more synergy in white for Wildfire and Pyrohemia). It fit really well into the self-mill shell I had drafted though. I'm definitely making room for this one!

 

[inscho]

It is a great finisher for the wildfire deck, a huge payoff for sacrifice/recursion decks. It's also just a solid roadblock/finisher in any control deck, as it works nicely with boardwipes and the like.

Similarly,



Which adds some artifact overlap....it’s fair as it is a bit harder to abuse since the token is legendary. Great with wildfire and other sweepers

 

[ravnic]

Oh, of course, Tuktuk is great. I also run for similar reasons as a #3 ...



Still wins the game most of the time after a wildfire

 

[MurphysHuman]

This discussion of Wildfire guys makes me wonder whether it is worth making a distinction between explicit archetype density and implicit density. For example, Pia and Kiran Nalaar tells you every archetype it links into right on the card:

"Legendary Creature - Human Artificer" - Ok, got it. I can trigger historic and Human tribal payoffs.
"When Pia and Kiran Nalaar enters the battlefield" - EtB trigger, this is a blink target
"put two 1/1" - tokens! Anthems, aristocrats, and stax.
"colorless Thopter artifact creature tokens" - artifact tokens! Ok, Welder/Daretti/other artifact synergies are in play too.
"2R, sacrifice an artifact" - further reinforcing the aristocrats/stax themes
"deal 2 damage" - in case I ever get around to wanting to kill my opponent instead of just pulling off cool synergies

In comparison, something like Quasiduplicate tells you only a few things upfront:

"Jump-start (You may cast this card from your graveyard by discarding a card in addition to paying its other costs. Then exile this card.)" tells you that it's a good idea to be discarding cards in a deck with Quasiduplicate, since you can discard Quasiduplicate itself and still get value out of it, and it will ask for a discard to fuel jump-start later. So flashback, madness, Wild Mongrel, and Drake Haven-style cards are all pretty obvious here. But Quasiduplicate doesn't say anything explicit about what sorts of creatures I should be looking to copy. Depending on the cube, it could be any of



and all would be interesting uses of the card. Similarly, Dragon Egg makes me personally think about Braids, Cabal Minion or Wildfire, but I could just as easily think of Dragon's Hoard or Gift of Immortality.

I suppose the obvious point is that the archetype density of a card depends greatly on the cube in which it is placed. But the more subtle point is that it's worth considering how much explicit vs. implicit archetype density you want in your cube. More implicit density leads to a harder-to-read draft experience but perhaps more rewarding depth, where explicit density makes it easier to see the cube's themes at a glance while potentially detracting from play depth.

Do you prefer one over the other?