@shamizy I've been consideration Herald of Anguish, but was curious about two things: 1) Have any of your drafters picked the card mistaking black for having an artifact theme; and 2) has its improvise ability been used at least a few times?
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
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Not really. On occasion you'll be able to power it out a turn or two early off tokens from a Pia and Kiran Nalaar or Whirler Rogue, but it's mostly a reanimation target. On occasion Clue tokens off a Tireless Tracker let you cast it on T5 in a G/B shell that also has the ability to self-mill and reanimate. I think there are enough incidental artifact tokens nowadays that a player can occasionally improvise this out at a more reasonable 5-6 mana cost. A lot of times there can be a black splash off a base U/R Artifacts shell, but I see this mostly as a reanimation target that can occasionally be played at a reduced cost.
I dunno if anyone has ever talked about this dude, but I'm going to talk about this dude:
Ol' Crushy here is exactly what the doctor ordered as a curve-topper for a low-curve Rx deck. Oh, sure, you look at it and go "it's just a vanilla beater, what gives?", but that ignores the secret power that the card has. Namely, once it's on the battlefield, you'll never topdeck another land.
I love you, Countryside Crusher.
Ol' Crushy here is exactly what the doctor ordered as a curve-topper for a low-curve Rx deck. Oh, sure, you look at it and go "it's just a vanilla beater, what gives?", but that ignores the secret power that the card has. Namely, once it's on the battlefield, you'll never topdeck another land.
I love you, Countryside Crusher.
this is the ultimate blessing and curse of the Crusher. I don't mind the card, just fits awkwardly into a lot of decks I work towards in my cube.
Played a couple of drafts of the Artisan cube on MTGO and came upon this card again after not seeing it for a while.
Does anyone else like this card? I always seem to pick it too highly and it always seems to wheel even when I let it slide.
It seems to be everything I want in the durdle piles I create, a source of card advantage and an early blocker.
Is the card advantage engine too random for people to like it? Is this card secretly terrible but I am just blind?
Please enlighten me with your card evaluation skillz
Does anyone else like this card? I always seem to pick it too highly and it always seems to wheel even when I let it slide.
It seems to be everything I want in the durdle piles I create, a source of card advantage and an early blocker.
Is the card advantage engine too random for people to like it? Is this card secretly terrible but I am just blind?
Please enlighten me with your card evaluation skillz
I like it and ran it in my test decks when I was conceptualizing my new cube. Just didn't make the cut due to tight competition. I think it might run into problems getting drafted by others since it can end up leaning on synergies and there are cards like Courser of Kruphix that are more overtly powerful in similar roles.
I like how Grave Titan acts as a nice bridge between Slow Midrange, Control and Reanimation as a card all of these decks can play. I don't like how hard it can be to beat this on board most of the time. Compared to Elspeth, Grave Titan adds 3 times as much power to the board the turn it enters the battlefield, and produces an extra 25% more power on each subsequent turn. The tokens are better, and Grave Titan can take part in combat instead of needing to be protected. The only real way to answer a titan is with a removal spell, as it can't simply die to being hit with a flier. While the tokens sticking around makes it decent against targeted removal, titan is pretty sad when killed by a wrath variant.In the same vein as Elspeth:
I want a beefy black finisher and reanimation target - this is the obvious one that many of us labelled as too strong for our Cubes years ago. For those of you who do play it or gave it another chance, what's the verdict in 2021?
This is how I feel like Grave Titan plays:
Pros:
-Good bridge between several archetypes.
-Good finisher.
-Good reanimation target.
-Is a Mulldrifter (or a Titan if you use that category as well)
Cons:
-Swingy (Extremely difficult to beat without a spell based answer, not great when it dies to a removal spell)
-Insane Clock
-Difficult to Interact With
-Folds to Wipes
Having said all of that, I think there are still Cubes where Grave Titian is not a broken card. However, I think it is only a servicable option in a very small number of Cubes that are fast enough to race it but slow enough to cast it consistently. Personally this is not a card I would want to deploy if I'm just looking for a good reanimation target– I don't enjoy the play patterns this card provides. However, I think if you need to conserves space and don't want to split the "reanimation target" and "castable beefy finisher" role between Archon of Cruelty and Tasigur or some other combination of cards, Grave Titian is not an unreasonable choice. You just have to make sure other decks are going to be able to consistently beat it when it comes down.
This card is super cool, I would try to play it if I had more room for red 3-drops. It's a great top-end card for aggressive red strategies, and also plays reasonably well in Gruul Life from the Loam decks.I dunno if anyone has ever talked about this dude, but I'm going to talk about this dude:
Ol' Crushy here is exactly what the doctor ordered as a curve-topper for a low-curve Rx deck. Oh, sure, you look at it and go "it's just a vanilla beater, what gives?", but that ignores the secret power that the card has. Namely, once it's on the battlefield, you'll never topdeck another land.
I love you, Countryside Crusher.
@TrainmasterGT
I did not laugh react to make fun of you. I reacted because I thought about the giant on the battlefield doing parkour like Michael Scott. So funny!
I especially like those finger guns at the end.
I did not laugh react to make fun of you. I reacted because I thought about the giant on the battlefield doing parkour like Michael Scott. So funny!
I especially like those finger guns at the end.I think Grave Titan categorically can't be a Mulldrifter, since the whole idea behind those categories was that there is a distinction between "cards that can be cleanly answered, and should be as quickly as possible" and "cards that can't be cleanly answered, but don't need to be unless you're way behind".
It would take a very special environment for ol' GT to be something that you don't want to remove ASAP, or where you can cleanly answer it with "normal" removal.
And it's not like cards like that are bad, really. Like, I don't think anyone would point at Voice of Resurgence and —
Oh, wow, I remember how Voice of Resurgence felt super strong when I started playing magic. Now it looks... solid? At best?
EDIT: For those of you who weren't playing Magic at the time... that's what a $50 chase mythic used to look like.
It would take a very special environment for ol' GT to be something that you don't want to remove ASAP, or where you can cleanly answer it with "normal" removal.
And it's not like cards like that are bad, really. Like, I don't think anyone would point at Voice of Resurgence and —
Oh, wow, I remember how Voice of Resurgence felt super strong when I started playing magic. Now it looks... solid? At best?
EDIT: For those of you who weren't playing Magic at the time... that's what a $50 chase mythic used to look like.
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Oversimplification: the best answers for Grave Titan are Wrath of God, Mana Leak and Lava Spike. 6 mana haymakers section the meta into Control, Aggro-Control and Aggro, which is positive in that it adds some clarity to how it all works, but in practice Esper control becomes the deck everyone wants to draft, with Grave Titan, Wrath of God AND Mana Leak.
Unless I'm a super lower to the ground B/x Aggro deck with my curve topping off at 4 or a very specific combo deck, I'm likely going to play Grave Titan in every deck featuring black. Hell, I would even splash into it if I saw it early enough and wasn't fully committed. It's still a really really dumb card that creates so many non-games. Reanimate it early? They better have a wrath in the next two turns. Ramp a little and deploy it on T4 or T5? They're probably outmatched on board and won't be able to keep up without an immediate answer. Just play it on curve? Might take a bit longer, but it'll eventually generate enough power to break through. It is the definition of an answer me or die threat. I love them in Constructed or EDH, but stay the hell away in Cube. Maybe if I was able to host multiple times a month with a super active playgroup things would be different, but miss me with that bullshit when we only get a handful of 6-8 man sessions a year.
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I don't mind grave titan at my power level. For the haters, would giving the tokens Decayed change your opinion?
Yes. I think it would just be a Tainted Adversary variant at that point, simply swapping the flexibility of the adversary for a larger body.
I still probably wouldn’t play with the card with that change, although that’s because I think it would be a little below where I would want a 6-drop creature to be.
I’ve come to the realization that I just don’t like grave titan’s design in general, it seems like no matter what change I can come up with (giving the tokens defender, making them unable to block, or as Jason suggested giving them decay), none of them seem like they would make the card more fun without either giving the Titan a smaller body or making fewer tokens. I think this really wants to be a 5-mana 4/4 or something that only makes one token, maybe even only if it attacks and not also when it enters the battlefield.
What Black finishers do people like that are at a similar power level to Grave Titan?
Most likely. The snowball effect has been the main complaint for my playgroup when someone gets this out on turns 2 and 3. I have a lot of nostalgia for Grave Titan and will continue to pick it highly in Vintage cubes due to its power level and ability to hard cast, but I don't think it's a healthy card for environments below that power level.
And yeah, its play pattern is rather boring. Tovolar's Huntmaster is a much more interesting take since you need to flip it to get the attack trigger (which your opponent can control), and the fight ability on the back gives it more lines of play in the late game.
Do you want a midrange threat or a cheat target?
I think people have different definitions of what each of these terms encompasses. "Mulldrifters" are often used to describe any creature with a reasonable ETB ability, even if it's bigger than a 2/2 or something. Likewise, some people use "Baneslayer" to include any creature that doesn't generate immediate value, even if they're small, such as Dark Confidant and Young Pyromancer.
I think of it as a 4-quadrant system. You have Baneslayers, which are creatures that don't have enter the battlefield abilities and are primarily played for their bodies, Mulldrifters, which creatures which are only played for enters the battlefield abilities and not their bodies, Titans, which creatures that are played for both their enters the battlefield abilities and their bodies, and finally Confidants, which are creatures without enters the battlefield abilities that are played for a reason other than their body.
This is a visual of my "types of creatures" breakdown:
What am I, chopped liver?
Very special chopped liver.
Also... wow, now I think I need to go over previous conversations to make sure that I'm not talking past people — like my post said, I've always interpreted it as a matter of removal (especially sorcery-speed removal), not when the value comes in.
Like, to me a Mulldrifter/Titan has to be a card that makes spending removal on it feel messy. Like, I'd call Judge's Familiar a Mulldrifter and Esper Sentinel a Titan because both of them feel pretty bad if you spend an instant or sorcery to remove them. The distinction is that Judge's Familiar turns a Lightning Bolt targeted at something else into a Lightning Strike once, while Esper Sentinel requires you to play your non-creatures off-curve until you remove it (or just, you know, let your opponent draw bunch of cards).
The thing about this interpretation is that it's pretty format dependent. Like, in the right format, Owlin Shieldmage is a Titan by my definition.
Also... wow, now I think I need to go over previous conversations to make sure that I'm not talking past people — like my post said, I've always interpreted it as a matter of removal (especially sorcery-speed removal), not when the value comes in.
Like, to me a Mulldrifter/Titan has to be a card that makes spending removal on it feel messy. Like, I'd call Judge's Familiar a Mulldrifter and Esper Sentinel a Titan because both of them feel pretty bad if you spend an instant or sorcery to remove them. The distinction is that Judge's Familiar turns a Lightning Bolt targeted at something else into a Lightning Strike once, while Esper Sentinel requires you to play your non-creatures off-curve until you remove it (or just, you know, let your opponent draw bunch of cards).
The thing about this interpretation is that it's pretty format dependent. Like, in the right format, Owlin Shieldmage is a Titan by my definition.
The only cheat I run is Birthing Pod
Busted
I want something that works well as both, which is why I still cube with Grave Titan although I do agree that it's pretty hard to make a 720 cube where Grave Titan is a fair and fun card. Can't really think of anything that serves as a good glue between those two archetypes at the top-end.
The next best thing that works adequately as a midrange threat and a cheat target is Demonlord Belzenlok or maybe its cousin Burning-Rune Demon, who are my second and third favorite black six-drops respectively. Noxious Gearhulk still being one of the most-run 6 MV creatures in black is pretty wild when it's mostly a less flexible Shriekmaw, but hey, it's an artifact so I still run it over the Burning-Rune Demon.
Remember when Geth, Lord of the Vault was a fine 6-drop in black for like a year before it just felt too bad to play it next to Grave Titan?
I was going to suggest
Who I think is a sweet one. You still get ETB value, but also synergy potential (like Gifts Ungiven) or even redundancy (grab 2 more reanimation spells so that if they answer it you get to grab it again). It's not a quick clock, but it does good work.
Who I think is a sweet one. You still get ETB value, but also synergy potential (like Gifts Ungiven) or even redundancy (grab 2 more reanimation spells so that if they answer it you get to grab it again). It's not a quick clock, but it does good work.
I remember when Visara the Dreadful and Kokusho, the Evening Star were considered to be the optimal black 6-drops.