Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

Modin

Modin



How "strong" is that card? I am looking for {B/G} cards that make people want to play these colors. A player recently remarked that his Golgari deck felt like a generic unfocused pile. I am afraid that Grim Flayer might be too far above my power level but have no experience with how it plays.

For reference, here is a list of cards that "should" go into the golgari deck (leaning more to the aggro or midrange side):
 
japahn

japahn

That brings up a good point. Sacrifice cards are generally balanced assuming you will be able to generate tokens to sacrifice cheaply, or otherwise have creatures that are good to sacrifice such as Strangleroot Geist. That makes the sacrifice archetype more like an A+B synergy deck and though it cross-polinates well with tokens, this archetype cluster can easily get isolated because the delta between sacrificing tokens and sacrificing actual generic creatures is so large. I'm thinking of removing the archetype from my cube for this reason.

Phyrexian Tower doesn't deviate from this problem, if anything one single extra mana does not make up for the loss of CA if you are sacrificing something that's an actual sacrifice. Among the enablers for the traditional archetype, it looks fine. Doesn't take up a spell slot and is very hard to disrupt.
 
Nanonox

Nanonox

@japahn You make a compelling argument to remove the sacrifice archetype.

My issue then is what to do in Black. I have a decent spells support as well as a solid GY support, but not much after that. I have to admit I am lacking imagination ><

If keeping the archetype, maybe the sacrifice payoffs could be reimagined to fit other decks instead of being mostly damaged based. It doesn't solve the A+B problem however. Making mana with Pitiless Plunderer and Phyrexian Altar could be interesting? Altar of Dementia to self-mill? Diabolic Intent to appeal some synergy decks?
 
japahn

japahn

I don't think the current card pool supports well archetypes about sacrificing larger creatures like Greater Good does, at typical or even relatively low power levels.

I could see a very resilient black section as supporting both graveyard and sacrifice (sort of like Jason's multi Gravecrawlers) and still being made of cards playable in other decks.
 
Nanonox

Nanonox

I played it and it has been stellar in my multiplayer cube. It usually takes out something early and then gives you a mana sink later. Sure my cube is slower than yours, but I think the play pattern will probably be similar. Cast early, dome later. Gives you 2 spell triggers and can be discarded to Faithless Lootings and such.
The downside of not going to face is mitigated by the backside and this is even serviceable in a more controlling Red deck.

Highly recommend!
 
B

blacksmithy

Nanonox said:
I played it and it has been stellar in my multiplayer cube. It usually takes out something early and then gives you a mana sink later. Sure my cube is slower than yours, but I think the play pattern will probably be similar. Cast early, dome later. Gives you 2 spell triggers and can be discarded to Faithless Lootings and such.
The downside of not going to face is mitigated by the backside and this is even serviceable in a more controlling Red deck.

Highly recommend!
Click to expand...
Thanks! Last night i noticed that a lot of my Red/Black stuff is based around the “second hand” type of graveyard value, a lot of my burn spells have flashback and a few of my black creatures can recur themselves from the yard, and red has a few discard outlets where you can grab value from all these flashback/escape/etc cards. so this fits perfectly into that dynamic of “burn a critter now, burn your face later.” i’m gonna try it!
 
Nemo

Nemo

Re:sacrifice, I've been tinkering with a Mardu triangle archetype that is something like RB sacrifice + BW weenie recursion + RW artifacts. The latter sounds out of place, but artifacts can do weenie recursion and sacrifice stuff, and black has some artifact stuff to bring to the mix. I think that makes for an interesting triangle.
 
B

blacksmithy


Is this too cheeky/unfair/polarizing, or can it be a cool way to turn lands and discard-value cards (flashback etc) into damage and board control?
 
Brad

Brad

I think the sac deck is hard because it's not only A+B but a lot of A and a lot of B aren't very good in other decks. Nantuko Husk+Doomed Traveler are both really uninspiring.

blacksmithy said:
anyone have testing data for Cut//Ribbons in a high power environment? Seems deece for RB pyromancer stuff
Click to expand...
I don't like it because it's really efficient up front and kind of "remember this? hehe i winnn" on the back. If you want a big mana payoff, it has some appeal, though. I think it's much more appealing when you're trying to abuse X than casually reusing it on turn 10.

blacksmithy said:
Bombardment

Is this too cheeky/unfair/polarizing, or can it be a cool way to turn lands and discard-value cards (flashback etc) into damage and board control?
Click to expand...
I don't like this card's energy. I don't know why.[/ci]
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

Brad said:
I think the sac deck is hard because it's not only A+B but a lot of A and a lot of B aren't very good in other decks. Nantuko Husk+Doomed Traveler are both really uninspiring.


I don't like it because it's really efficient up front and kind of "remember this? hehe i winnn" on the back. If you want a big mana payoff, it has some appeal, though. I think it's much more appealing when you're trying to abuse X than casually reusing it on turn 10.


I don't like this card's energy. I don't know why.[/ci]
Click to expand...
Not sure I totally agree on the Nantuko Husk point. I think it's pretty interesting and threatening even if you don't have things specifically set up to sacrifice, but would depend on your power level I guess.

Totally agree with you on Cut/Ribbons. I have avoided including it for that 'oops I win' effect (and I don't tend to play fireballs anyway), but I've really enjoyed it in the Chromatic Cube as a way to intentionally finish them off as part of the draft because I know I'm drafting a lot of mana. At least they can see it coming I guess and try to deal with it via graveyard removal.

I also just wanted to mention this card here:



I meant to talk about this when I played it in the previous Arena cube, where a lot of the times I was killing creatues with it, but then a lot of the times having a way to make them discard two was super useful, and might be more worthy of consideration here. I'd envisage the unearth effect would be more useful for our cubes as well. I already have Consign // Oblivion and Down // Dirty as incidental discard effects, so it might be nice to have a third one as well.
 
B

blacksmithy

i think Inscriptions get better as you add ramp so that the kicker becomes more probable. for example if people are doing Grixis Treasures, one good payoff would be Inscription of Ruin, as the basic effects are decently on-rate in such an environment and then you have the option to kick it with your Treasure.
 
B

blacksmithy

Would

be less of a bullshit game ruiner if she weren’t indestructible?

Would losing indestructible be too much of a nerf to keep her cool and playable at high power? (like fairmax high)
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
blacksmithy said:
Would

be less of a bullshit game ruiner if she weren’t indestructible?

Would losing indestructible be too much of a nerf to keep her cool and playable at high power? (like fairmax high)
Click to expand...
I would make it a destructible creature without all the devotion activation nonsense with more middling stats, if I had to redesign the card.
 
B

blacksmithy


it’s been ages since i gave this card a single look but i found it in the binder at the game shop and it seems pretty aight? it’s literally counterspell strapped to searing spear! kinda cool!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top