Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

[Erik Twice]

I feel Young Pyromancer is an absolute staple, as are similar cards like it (The Raven Man, Springheart Nantuko, etc.). The problem, like Nanonox says, is that it doesn't trigger on non-creatures only instant/sorceries. The spells deck is hard to draft because you need both creatures and spells and it's easy to only have 8 or 9 cards that trigger the effect. There's a tendence to artifact our cubes and that also hurts the card.

I agree that Village Rites helps a lot and I want to include it in my cube again.

 

[Phone]

So I love these cards and I'm looking at adding them to the 360 cube. In general, how many colourless sources would people suggest. Is it different if the cards are seen as a payoff as it were for drafting colourless mana?

Edit: Hypergeometric calculator says around 5 sources to cast these on curve 80% of the time. The asfan for the cards that produce is 1. So...maybe that needs to come up a lot. Do those numbers sound reasonable? Is anyone else playing them in a non-dedicated cube?

 

[Brad]

Bro, don't add a sixth color for two cards. If your cube is strong enough to support TKS, your drafters are gonna be pretty sad playing pains and filters instead of shocks and fetches. I have an Eldrazi cube and I don't even like running the sixth color.

 

[Phone]

Bro, don't add a sixth color for two cards. If your cube is strong enough to support TKS, your drafters are gonna be pretty sad playing pains and filters instead of shocks and fetches. I have an Eldrazi cube and I don't even like running the sixth color.

You know what? Totally fair.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

So I love these cards and I'm looking at adding them to the 360 cube. In general, how many colourless sources would people suggest. Is it different if the cards are seen as a payoff as it were for drafting colourless mana?

Edit: Hypergeometric calculator says around 5 sources to cast these on curve 80% of the time. The asfan for the cards that produce is 1. So...maybe that needs to come up a lot. Do those numbers sound reasonable? Is anyone else playing them in a non-dedicated cube?

You know what? Totally fair.

If you're looking for cool cards that do something similar but work within the normal 5 color system, might I suggest:

 

[Phone]

If you're looking for cool cards that do something similar but work within the normal 5 color system, might I suggest:

Yeah, I think the two Eldrazi are just kind of pet cards for me. They have a certain aura. And I'm still running V-clique!

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I got to play this in a double masters 2022 draft. It's obviously very good. At what power level is this fair in a cube? It's an iconic cars but I feel it can easily run away with games, but maybe that's ok for a 6 drop

 

[Erik Twice]

I got to play this in a double masters 2022 draft. It's obviously very good. At what power level is this fair in a cube? It's an iconic cars but I feel it can easily run away with games, but maybe that's ok for a 6 drop

It's extremely powerful, probably the best blue finisher. Unless it's killed in the spot, it will run away with the game. Note that it draws enough cards to justify reanimating or cheating it into play somehow. Even if it's eventually killed or you have to 2 for 1 yourself, you come out ahead.

I dislike it. The fact that it's pure good-stuff with no synergies doesn't help matters, I feel there are more fun, interesting cards you can run instead.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I also think the power band where this is acceptable is very narrow. It goes from absolutely running away with games in lower to mid power cubes to unplayably expensive in low cmc high power cubes very fast.

 

[Humpty_Dumpty]

Agreed with Erik and Onder. Either you feel sad because your opponent answers your six drop with removal (even if you wait until they are tapped out they can still kill the sphinx on upkeep to avoid you benefiting from their draw step), or they have no removal and you bury them in card advantage.

I believe the card is still worth a fair bit, so if you opened it in a draft count that as a win and trade it for some more interesting cards.



Is anyone else having success with this card? It fits into so many themes (counters, tokens, graveyard) but never seems to quite make it in draft.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I also think the power band where this is acceptable is very narrow. It goes from absolutely running away with games in lower to mid power cubes to unplayably expensive in low cmc high power cubes very fast.

Fair enough! Probably better to just trade it with some EDH player. It did feel pretty gross when I played it, so good to get talked out of putting it in a cube

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Is anyone else having success with this card? It fits into so many themes (counters, tokens, graveyard) but never seems to quite make it in draft.

I think maybe it's just a little to finicky? It's a complete do-nothing card until you've either played a token or somehow both filled and then removed a card from your graveyard. Compare that with just playing rampant growth and other ramp into some big fatty like spiritmonger. Of course, it dependents on what you want out of cube, but it just seems like a lot of hoops.

 

[Nanonox]

Is anyone else having success with this card? It fits into so many themes (counters, tokens, graveyard) but never seems to quite make it in draft.

Absolutely love this card. It's cheap to cast and the ceiling is insane. It works with a lot of what your BG section is likely to care about.



Dredge, Delve, Escape, Eternalize and Unearth are easy ways to fuel the Roots, meaning it slots into a self-mill deck really easily.



Green's recursion and Black's reanimate effects make it trivial to trigger the leave the GY clause. The plant tokens then give you the mana to play them again so you don't fall behind.



While typically used on the opponent's cards, you can use these in a pinch on yourself and get a steady stream of plants and mana.



Recursive threats that you can sacrifice means you can trigger these multiple times a turn potentially. Speaking of sacrifice, the plants are great fodder for your various sacrifice effects.



You are making a bunch of tokens, there are tons of ways to take advantage of that.



You can also turn your generic token producers into mana engines, similar to Earthcraft.



Maybe you care about +1/+1 counters?


Hopefully this isn't too long, but you can see that it's a really open-ended build around that doesn't pigeonhole you into a specific deck. Yes you'll probably care about the GY, but you don't have to! Golgari sections naturally do everything this card encourages, it's not hard to find a home for it IMO.

Just to finish, a few (higher powered) decks from my cube showcasing the Roots

Metal Roots

Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever are fantastic cards to pair alongside Insidious Roots making it a secret artifact matters card in Golgari. Here it's a splash, but it just shows how versatile it can be.

Grindy Roots

This is more of a traditional grindy GY deck where the plant tokens can cast Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, fuel Dread Return or Woe Strider.

I really love this card

 

[Humpty_Dumpty]

So far my experience has matched Rasmus’ description, but I am inspired by Nanonox’s passionate panegyric to the card! Which of your cubes are the decks drafted from? The high power, high synergy approach is what I am aiming for, and I want to steal your ideas

 

[Nanonox]

panegyric

Learned a new word, thank you!

The decks are taken from my 1vs1 high power, high synergy cube so they should fit your criteria. Please share your experiences after trying again.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Can someone sell me on this card. What's the play pattern with it? Mill yourself a lot, try to do a one-turn-kill by emptying your hand and graveyard?

 

[Chris Taylor]

Basically. On a long enough timeframe, it's basically got player deathtouch. You just need to make sure it connects, either via something simple like shadow rift or something more esoteric like upheaval.

It's perfect for the kind of games where you don't take a single forward game action until you know there's nothing your opponent can do to stop you.

 

[Velrun]

In Standard you would often attack with it simple because it also had creature deathtouch so opponent wouldn’t block.

Then you deal 1 damage. In Standard meta where you kept counting life total because your Psychatog deck was kind of a math problem deck.

You had cards like Force Spike, Memory Lapse, Counterspell, Duress, Fact or Fiction and Circular Logic, Undermine, Repulse, Chainer’s Edict and Nightscape Familiar.

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

I think the thing that makes Tog such a fun game piece is its unpredictability and potential for bluffing. The way it interacts with blocking and the combination of different ways you can pump it makes it really hard for your opponent to account for everything and play around it. I think that's the main appeal of the card from a fun perspective.

As far as power level goes I think it's a little weak for the highest power levels these days, but I'm happy to play it in any mid power cube that cares about the board.

 

[ravnic]

It also keeps every attacker without evasion back, as it always has to be treated like a 11/12 or something, then it becomes your finisher. Sometimes people are also kinda forced to feed creatures to it, so it generates card advantage. It is a discard outlet for madness and reanimator too. I love it.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm currently off Psychatog. It's a free, unlimited discard outlet, and at a certain stage of the game it becomes an abyss on legs. I think there are more interesting discard outlets nowadays, with a higher floor, and a less absurd ceiling.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Ok I feel pretty sold on it. Currently brewing a "mean cube" with cards like Upheaval and Armageddon so I don't mind high ceiling, and I'm trying to keep the power level of creatures somewhat tamed.

 

[Velrun]

Those are cards that go really well with Psychatog although Armageddon requires 3 colors to share a deck.

 

[inscho]

Can someone sell me on this card. What's the play pattern with it? Mill yourself a lot, try to do a one-turn-kill by emptying your hand and graveyard?

Mostly outclassed these days…however there is now an upgraded/more versatile version:

 

[ravnic]

Just saying this because I read it twice recently and this is not mtgsalvation: Whether a card is outclassed or not is 100% and no percentage less your very own decision. Psychatog didn't get any worse since it's been printed, they just keep printing busted cards.