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Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Because I like the gameplay effect it provides and therefore want it to be more prevalent across the different colors, just like how I wouldn't want every color to have to splash red or black to have ways to deal with creatures.
Wizards isn't going to do it for you, because frankly, what you're asking for is stepping on blue's toes (and blue doesn't even get that many great cantrips anyway, often there's years between two playable blue 1 mv cantrips). That means you've got to take matters into your own hands if you really want those great, cheap black cantrips. All I'm saying is, use custom cards, they're great! :)
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
But every color has ways to deal with creatures. They do it differently and aren't equally good at it, but when you start with giving every color Preordain and Infernal Grasp, why even bother having a color system at some point?
I feel called out :p

Also in my defense if every color has preordain and SOME way to kill a creature, there's still plenty of things to set them apart. Those are two things I feel like everyone needs as base game pieces, but I do even run less green removal to differentiate.

But in the end, they are but two things, and colors do a lot of things
 
But every color has ways to deal with creatures. They do it differently and aren't equally good at it, but when you start with giving every color Preordain and Infernal Grasp, why even bother having a color system at some point?
I didn't advocate giving every color preordain. I'm perfectly okay with narrowing the types of cantrips blue gets as a consequence of giving some of them to black.

It's also kind of funny that you would use Faithless Looting as an example when it's explicitly something they decided red isn't allowed to get.
 
I think it's fine that Black isn't very good at cantrips, honestly — it's the best color at tutors and can give you some really undercosted card draw if you're willing to sacrifice creatures and lose life. Like, I don't think any other color would (or should) give you anything like Bob.

On a related note, I really hope that Green has lost "draw a card on ETB" moving forwards now that that's White's thing.
 
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Every color get's cantripping creatures now except red. Poor red. I think cantrips are fine in every color, so why not letting red in to the creature draw party then?

Reloading Berserker {2}{R}
Creature - Badass
~ can't block.
When ~ etb's draw a card.
3/1

This way it would still feel red as it doesn't play the grind game like the others.

Crazy Maniac Freak {2}{R}
Creature - Dude
When ~ etb's, discard a card at random. If you do, draw two cards.
2/1

Potentially strong but with a red mentality. What you think, should they print something like that?
 
Wait, Black gets cantripping creatures? Since when?

Also, Red has rarely gotten creatures like...



Most of the time, though, Red's "cantrip" creatures are stuff like



EDIT: Making this post actually made me realize how sweet this little guy is in a Pauper cube:



Drop it after combat, and you can either power out a second spell or get a "free" rummage.
 
black sometimes gets etb draw with life loss attached.



also rarely sacrifice for cards



Even if you don't count the second category, it still beats white and many of it's additions are very recent.
 
On a different note, what are people's opinions on these cards from Ikoria?



They look like they're the two "keyword lords" that are worth playing without too many other cards with the appropriate keywords, but I don't actually have any experience playing with either of them.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Red doesn't get to sculpt their hand through looting, red's card filtering/advantage all plays into gambling or other impulsive patterns, whether it's cards like Goblin Game, Catharthic Reunion or Light up the Stage. Faithless Looting is too methodical, it gives you an informed decision of what to keep and discard.
That's not entirely accurate. While all your examples are valid ways for red to "draw" cards, WotC is also perfectly fine with printing stuff like Thrill of Possibility, for example, which gives a player way more agency than the cards you mention. The problem with Flooting is that it ticks too many boxes; it is aggressively costed, it has flashback (at a very affordable cost as well), and it gives the player the maximum amount of agency by drawing before discarding. Flooting's rate is simply too high. Note that Careful Study is a card that never caused any problems, even though it does exactly the same thing at the same mv. The only difference is that CS doesn't have flashback, that's what put Flooting over the top. I also don't think we are ever going to see many mono red cards in the future that draw before they discard. That's been firmly established as blue's way of looting in the past few years.
 
Mapi

I love Ikoria. The cards you mention are lords that could go into a cube but you still need a bunch of cards they could be the lord over.

Proud Wildbonder is hybrid and the lord of a keyword that plays quite interestingly (still) in Magic so that is a very real candidate I would say.

Labyrinth Raptor has the issue of being multicolored and competes with other Rakdos cards for a very few spots in a cube unless you are doing some unorthodox. It is also the lord over a keyword that is a little more dangerous to include a lot of in a cube. I will admit that it works with itself and that makes the card fully functional without many other menace creatures. But doesn’t that make it a little bit of a trap?
 
I like both of the keyword lords. Trample tribal seems easy to support and slots into aggressive (go wide or not) RG decks nicely:



As for the minotaur, it's a cheap, evasive mana sink that is self-contained. What's not to like?
Goes really well with



if you want to push the theme.
 
oh I meant goblin lore and not goblin game if anyone was confused
That's not entirely accurate.
What isn't? Thrill of Possibility is the same category of card as Catharthic Reunion, which was my arbitrary rummaging stand-in. And the conversation was about the color pie, so while yes, red also doesn't get literally Faithless Looting also for power level reasons, my comment was about its mechanics, which you echo. Red doesn't get to loot.

As an aside, the remark about Careful Study is kind of silly. Faithless Looting hasn't caused any problems in the formats that Careful Study is legal in either.
 
But.. does red not get this red card?



Printed in Dark Ascension, IDW Comics 2012, Duel Decks: Sorin vs. Tibalt, Commander 2014, Commander 2015, Eternal Masters, Commander Anthology Volume II, Eternal Masters, Commander 2019, Mystery Booster, Commander 2021, Strixhaven Mystical Archive, Strixhaven Mystical Archive Japanese and The List.

It has four different artworks since 2012.

Sometimes I don’t understand what other people are truly saying and I misunderstand. Never on purpose. Can you tell me what I do not understand, please?
 
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