I really love how the Rakdos Arcanist deck that's popular right now in Historic plays. How many 1 cmc spells do you need to run before this guy becomes viable?
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
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I really love how the Rakdos Arcanist deck that's popular right now in Historic plays. How many 1 cmc spells do you need to run before this guy becomes viable?
honestly a good cube should have enough already just from the fact that 1 mana spells are really nice to have in a cube.
but i’d run this guy as long as i had at least 3 targets in my deck? would like to have maybe 5. and he just gets nuttier with equipment (and pump) sooooo
but i’d run this guy as long as i had at least 3 targets in my deck? would like to have maybe 5. and he just gets nuttier with equipment (and pump) sooooo
You'll probably want to revise all your spells to add more 1cc spells. Just replacing a Volcanic Hammer with a Shock can help a lot. You don't need a huge number because a 2 mana creature that brings back any removal spell or cantrips is bound to be good.
Don't forget about Reckless Rage!
Don't forget about Reckless Rage!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I'm not sure how easy this is. There's a decent amount of 1-mana instants/sorceries in each colour but they don't always go in the same deck - maybe an aggressive deck can use Berserk with Arcanist to put a OHKO together or a Madness deck can buyback a Firestorm but can those cards coexist in the same shell? Power level also restricts the pool of Arcanist targets a lot - at the most extreme, Contract from Below and Ancestral Recall are the two best Arcanist targets in the game but you won't find these around parts, but if you think that e.g. Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile are too efficient as removal or Reanimate ends games too quickly (...or that Thoughtseize is an awful game-ruining design?!), how many appealing targets can you find? If you lower your power level enough, flashing back a Shock or similar is good but it's not trivial to fill out a deck with cheap spells. Additionally, Arcanist is a bad body if you're not triggering it consistently - I'd want at least 5-6 'good' targets before I'm happy about playing Arcanist in my deck.
It seems super easy to accommodate. White can... I guess it's just Swords and Path? Idk. Blue can run all those nice Scry+cantrips. Red can find plenty of 2-3 damage 1 cmc cards. Black can targeted discard if you're ok with intentionally creating nongames or can use some smaller removal/Village Rites/BOOSTER TUTOR. Green is cool with Primal Might enabling Arcanist with +power and via CMC=1.
It'll take a little shifting, maybe, but low curves are cool anyways.
It'll take a little shifting, maybe, but low curves are cool anyways.
Some cards you can run that aren’t Swords/Recall/Reanimate/Bolt that go great with Arcanist:
This is the tip of the iceberg.
This is the tip of the iceberg.
you’re very correct! great pivot between equipment and spellslinger.
I ran arcanist for a while and really like the card. I first included it as a bridge between spells matter and berserkers while also giving you a reasonable ophidian-like body for control. I ultimately cut it when I dropped my power level down and increased the presence of cycling, because my low cmc spells tended to already have flashback or retrace, and the cycle spells had high cmc. I tried to straddle the line for a bit, but in the end arcanist was cut
moldervine cloak is fun because it can both fill your graveyard and pump arcanist to recur larger spells.
moldervine cloak is fun because it can both fill your graveyard and pump arcanist to recur larger spells.
So i put this card into my blue section just because she looked cool with no real plan in mind. A lovely drafter pointed out that she LOOKS like she goes with Edric, but actually doesn’t because of my UG grow theme that’s so prevalent on 1/X and X/1 creatures in those colors.
I tried drafting around her a couple times myself and keep ending up in Esper with a bunch of token generators and Bone Shredder type cards... Not sure if I want to keep her?
EDIT: just put together a sweet UR spells/draw a second card deck that had lots of 1/1 guys floating around for her to roll with.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I played her for a while, but it just makes the game less interactive. Cool that you've got all these unblockable dudes, let's play solitaire, shall we? I cut her when I decided I wanted more ninja's and added Mist-Syndicate Naga, because that combo looked sketchy as hell to me, and the Naga was a lot more fun in testing!
I just want to say that
Is a lot of fun. I wish it were a 4/5 so it could survive Wildfire because the ability and risking it getting blown up is interesting. Also, totally busted with Uro. Everything is busted with Uro.
Is a lot of fun. I wish it were a 4/5 so it could survive Wildfire because the ability and risking it getting blown up is interesting. Also, totally busted with Uro. Everything is busted with Uro.
that guy is a RGx Ferocious payoff if ever i did see one
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I just want to say that
Is a lot of fun. I wish it were a 4/5 so it could survive Wildfire because the ability and risking it getting blown up is interesting. Also, totally busted with Uro. Everything is busted with Uro.
Combine with Yasharn, Implacable Earth for hexproof because they can't pay life
I am looking for green removal to keep interactions open in all color pairs and was wondering what people though of these for highish power level:
I like the scalability of both of these. 1 mana fight is efficient and there is a possibility of fireballing the opponent with Primal Might. Inscription is an actual versatile combat trick. No mode is great, but I think the sum of it's pieces are actually worthwhile.
What are your thoughts on these fight cards?
I like the scalability of both of these. 1 mana fight is efficient and there is a possibility of fireballing the opponent with Primal Might. Inscription is an actual versatile combat trick. No mode is great, but I think the sum of it's pieces are actually worthwhile.
What are your thoughts on these fight cards?
I've seen Primal Might see play in Standard and it was much better than I thought it would be. Spending three mana to get rid of an utility creature and blast face is a surprisingly good tempo play. You need a deck that wants to smash face, though. The main advantage over Prey Upon is that you can kill creatures on curve without killing your own.
I think Inscription of Abundance is just a bad card. First, the life gain is not going to be almost never. This leaves us with a 2 mana fight spell and putting two counters on a creature, both of which are very weak. And I can't see many situations win which the kicker is going to be relevant for anything except doing an impression of Primal Might. I just think the Inscription Cycle is very weak.
I think Inscription of Abundance is just a bad card. First, the life gain is not going to be almost never. This leaves us with a 2 mana fight spell and putting two counters on a creature, both of which are very weak. And I can't see many situations win which the kicker is going to be relevant for anything except doing an impression of Primal Might. I just think the Inscription Cycle is very weak.
Primal Might is the real deal. Do NOT underestimate.
Inscription is probably playable at high ish power but will look pretty dumb in, say, a powered list.
Inscription is probably playable at high ish power but will look pretty dumb in, say, a powered list.
I am looking for green removal to keep interactions open in all color pairs and was wondering what people though of these for highish power level:
I like the scalability of both of these. 1 mana fight is efficient and there is a possibility of fireballing the opponent with Primal Might. Inscription is an actual versatile combat trick. No mode is great, but I think the sum of it's pieces are actually worthwhile.
What are your thoughts on these fight cards?
I would argue the opposite position of both Erik and Blacksmithy- I do not believe Primal Might is a worthwhile cube inclusion, while Inscription of Abundance is a fairly reasonable choice.
I've cooled over time in regards to fight spells being reasonable removal in cube environments. While they are very good in retail limited, cubes will often have more instant-speed removal to blow out a potential fight player's super move. I've been playing a lot of standard and brawl on arena, and I've been finding that Primal Might is trivially easy to completely blank. If the opponent spends all of their mana tapping out to cast Primal Might X=7, and you cast Hagra Mauling targeting their would-be combatant, you've just managed to two for one them and swing the game into your favor.
While Inscription of Abundance does have the same issue as Primal Might in fight mode, it can do quite a bit more than that. Having a random combat trick to put counters on a guy is a nice ability to have. For example, being able to give +2/+2 to a Llanowar Elves to let it kill an attacking Legion Warboss is a nifty little trick. Also, the ability to gain a little life during a race can be nice. Now, if inscription just did these three things I wouldn't think it was all that great, but the fact that it can be kicked for a package deal on all of the above is really nice. The more things a card can do, the better it generally is, and Inscription of Abundance does a lot of reasonable things at multiple reasonable costs.
Worm Harvest has been a very popular card here on riptide over the years, and there's not doubt that it can be a good card. Here's the thing- I've never had a chance to play with it before! I was wondering if someone who has played this before can explain to me how this card's play patterns work. Specifically, I'm interested in knowing the following:
How many Worms does it usually make the first time it is cast?
Is it only scaling based on the lands it's using to cast it using retrace or are decks running this generally able to fill additional lands to yard?
Is it primarily a dredge card or can more traditional golgari "rock" style decks use it without too much issue?
Is it's initial cast generally from hand or from in the yard?
Finally, Worm Harvest is obviously a very repetitive card. Is it fun to make a million Worms or is it boring? This last point is obviously subjective- but if you have player feedback of the card, I'd love to hear it!
I had this in my 360 cube in the past, at the time the card was intended to be a payoff for a loam engine based Jund or Golgari deck, alongside effects that let you discard extra (land) cards for value, like wild mongrel and jaya ballard, task mage (I can't promise this second one was a smart idea but it was a pet card for awhile) and effects that let you do something with the worm tokens for value (nantuko husk etc.)
| How many Worms does it usually make the first time it is cast?
I think this depends heavily on when you find it and how all-in the land package is - In a 360 with double fetches (and 4 wastelands!) like I had, it's really easy to get 2 or 3 lands in the yard by turn 5, especially if you've got something early with a discard outlet on it. Generally speaking it feels really bad to actually cast this for less than 3 worms, but I've seen retrace into two worms into swing a nantuko husk to close out the game, so sometimes only getting a few is ok. (compare to lingering souls, which gives you 4 1/1 fliers for 5CMC - the value in Worm Harvest is that you can do it a lot.)
the fewest I ever saw it make was 2. generally players wouldn't cast it for 1 worm token. the most I ever saw on initial cast was 6(!) but it was also a late top-deck in that game.
| Is it only scaling based on the lands it's using to cast it using retrace or are decks running this generally able to fill additional lands to yard?
I've only seen it used in decks that had ways to get land into the yard beyond the retrace. I generally support self-mill / discard in this corner of the color pie however, so my experience is not exhaustive in this case. If you're in B and/or G in my cube you're probably discarding or milling for value which will put lands in the yard. If you're running Looting effects in R/U these also tend to throw extra lands in the yard as well.
| Is it primarily a dredge card or can more traditional golgari "rock" style decks use it without too much issue?
I *think* a general rock deck can use it as a value / chump blocker engine late game (it gives you something to do with extra lands, if your cube ends up in top deck wars, this is a sweet way to try to win those.) - if you play it in Jund it's spicy as hell after a wildfire, but to make those plays work on curve you'd generally need more artifact ramp than I think a lot of riptidian cubes run these days (certainly more than I do, anyway).
I think it's actually also interesting in a go-wide tokens deck using white anthem effects with green token makers, although the triple hybrid cost means it's much more common in a GB or GBx deck than a GW deck.
| Is it's initial cast generally from hand or from in the yard?
It feels *Way* better casting it from the yard, but assuming you've been dumping lands into the yard somehow on the way to 5 lands in play, there's nothing wrong with initial casts from the hand, I think this depends on when you draw it. It's an excellent card to pitch in the first couple turns of the game, so decks with access to ways to pitch cards for value early are going to be happy to do that.
| Repetitive Gameplay
I cut this for cube complexity reasons (it was my only retrace card and my usual players at the time were not generally very experienced magic players, people would sometimes forget they could use it, etc.) I think like most repetitive value effects that this is generally fun for Hero and mixed for Villain. Dredge decks sort of already have this "problem" in cube where they can feel like infinite value engines that don't play 'fair' economics because their graveyard is almost a second hand - but Worm Harvest is not generally the most egregious version of those sorts of effects - and even making 3,4,5 or more vanilla 1/1s three turns in a row are theoretically possible to answer (pyroclasm) or race (big flying vigilant baneslayers) in most cubes.
| other thoughts:
I think this card is an example of a deep card in cube: it represents the intersection of a number of themes (which are generally all easy to support: go-wide tokens, discard, lands, sacrifice) it's hybrid colored so appeals to the widest possible number of drafters, and its an effect that rewards carefully constructing the rest of your draft pool around it.
However, I also think that it's not a card you can just drop into any cube and see dividends: it's fairly slow, it's only really good if your GB corner decks can make games go long enough to build up value, and it can lock-up a game without actually *winning* the game, which is generally when the feel bad moments start. (the worst experience in limited in my opinion is knowing you basically *can't* win, but it not actually being a foregone conclusion that you can't.)
| How many Worms does it usually make the first time it is cast?
I think this depends heavily on when you find it and how all-in the land package is - In a 360 with double fetches (and 4 wastelands!) like I had, it's really easy to get 2 or 3 lands in the yard by turn 5, especially if you've got something early with a discard outlet on it. Generally speaking it feels really bad to actually cast this for less than 3 worms, but I've seen retrace into two worms into swing a nantuko husk to close out the game, so sometimes only getting a few is ok. (compare to lingering souls, which gives you 4 1/1 fliers for 5CMC - the value in Worm Harvest is that you can do it a lot.)
the fewest I ever saw it make was 2. generally players wouldn't cast it for 1 worm token. the most I ever saw on initial cast was 6(!) but it was also a late top-deck in that game.
| Is it only scaling based on the lands it's using to cast it using retrace or are decks running this generally able to fill additional lands to yard?
I've only seen it used in decks that had ways to get land into the yard beyond the retrace. I generally support self-mill / discard in this corner of the color pie however, so my experience is not exhaustive in this case. If you're in B and/or G in my cube you're probably discarding or milling for value which will put lands in the yard. If you're running Looting effects in R/U these also tend to throw extra lands in the yard as well.
| Is it primarily a dredge card or can more traditional golgari "rock" style decks use it without too much issue?
I *think* a general rock deck can use it as a value / chump blocker engine late game (it gives you something to do with extra lands, if your cube ends up in top deck wars, this is a sweet way to try to win those.) - if you play it in Jund it's spicy as hell after a wildfire, but to make those plays work on curve you'd generally need more artifact ramp than I think a lot of riptidian cubes run these days (certainly more than I do, anyway).
I think it's actually also interesting in a go-wide tokens deck using white anthem effects with green token makers, although the triple hybrid cost means it's much more common in a GB or GBx deck than a GW deck.
| Is it's initial cast generally from hand or from in the yard?
It feels *Way* better casting it from the yard, but assuming you've been dumping lands into the yard somehow on the way to 5 lands in play, there's nothing wrong with initial casts from the hand, I think this depends on when you draw it. It's an excellent card to pitch in the first couple turns of the game, so decks with access to ways to pitch cards for value early are going to be happy to do that.
| Repetitive Gameplay
I cut this for cube complexity reasons (it was my only retrace card and my usual players at the time were not generally very experienced magic players, people would sometimes forget they could use it, etc.) I think like most repetitive value effects that this is generally fun for Hero and mixed for Villain. Dredge decks sort of already have this "problem" in cube where they can feel like infinite value engines that don't play 'fair' economics because their graveyard is almost a second hand - but Worm Harvest is not generally the most egregious version of those sorts of effects - and even making 3,4,5 or more vanilla 1/1s three turns in a row are theoretically possible to answer (pyroclasm) or race (big flying vigilant baneslayers) in most cubes.
| other thoughts:
I think this card is an example of a deep card in cube: it represents the intersection of a number of themes (which are generally all easy to support: go-wide tokens, discard, lands, sacrifice) it's hybrid colored so appeals to the widest possible number of drafters, and its an effect that rewards carefully constructing the rest of your draft pool around it.
However, I also think that it's not a card you can just drop into any cube and see dividends: it's fairly slow, it's only really good if your GB corner decks can make games go long enough to build up value, and it can lock-up a game without actually *winning* the game, which is generally when the feel bad moments start. (the worst experience in limited in my opinion is knowing you basically *can't* win, but it not actually being a foregone conclusion that you can't.)
i have won a game or two with it and agree with Jericho’s post above. he said it really well.
more fetches/wilds and self mill = better worm harvest.
more fetches/wilds and self mill = better worm harvest.
What would be the ramifications of giving one of these to each player before the tournament?
My goal is to shorten the average game length (minutes, not turns). Would this succeed or actually make games last longer on average? Another idea is to give that ability to everyone but house rule it to put the other hand on the bottom without a shuffle.
I'm not sure that actually has an affect on gameplay time, as that would generally be dictated by the overall contents of the decks. If anything, it reduces the number of quick kills to a bad starting hand, which would increase average gametime. And the added time of the extra "mulligan" at the start of the games.