Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
As someone who has never used twitter even once, hashtags have always been just another internet meme to me, and that seems to be how they work anyway.
#whatsocialmedia #livinginthestoneage #nofunallowed

On an unrelated note, how has this guy in particular panned out for people? I may have too many {1}{R} cards.
Fast mana effects belong in red, but it's very hard to find cubable ones. Seething Song is really mediocre, despite its merits in constructed. I find Generator Servant fun and good enough, and I'ld rather cut a random aggressive dork if I had to cut back on red two drops.
 

CML

Contributor
As someone who has never used twitter even once, hashtags have always been just another internet meme to me, and that seems to be how they work anyway.
#whatsocialmedia #livinginthestoneage #nofunallowed

On an unrelated note, how has this guy in particular panned out for people? I may have too many {1}{R} cards.


not even good in m15 limited. i wonder why this card is bad? i took it out after one go-round.

i would be more inclined to try rhystic tutor if the art wasn't what it is

anyone try

 
Haven't played with him much, but I personally like Generator Servant. As a Goblin Piker, it's definitely far from special. But the fact that it can potentially grant haste to two dudes at any point makes it a sweet card worth inclusion IMO. Sure, it's not great as far as stats go but I'll settle for it & happily play hasty bombs & pairs of dudes cuz that shit feels good.
 
My cube is mid-power, and generator servant has been seeing play pretty often. It's on my watch list (many other great red 2 drops), but so far my play group seems to like it well enough. Not amazing, but solid, and can definitely lead to some blowouts if setup properly.
 

Yes? No?

I'm starting to be a fan of cards with a unique property in a cube. I have zero other mill your opponent cards. I understand he wasn't designed for 40 card decks. Before I played him I couldn't decide if he was too powerful or too weak. After a bit of use I think he may be just right. I mean basically, he's a creature that will kill your opponent in 3 turns or so, once you get 6 mana. Yes, he takes a ton of mana, but it's really nice to have an instant speed mana sink (esp. in blue). Killing an opponent in 3 turns or so if left alone seems far from overpowered.

I will add, the first time I used him in a 6 man draft he was like last pick. I would've picked him up if I was blue. His time will come once people start seeing the mill kills...

Another thing that's important to mention is he requires help (mainly fat blockers).
 
Haven't played with him much, but I personally like Generator Servant. As a Goblin Piker, it's definitely far from special. But the fact that it can potentially grant haste to two dudes at any point makes it a sweet card worth inclusion IMO. Sure, it's not great as far as stats go but I'll settle for it & happily play hasty bombs & pairs of dudes cuz that shit feels good.


It's been in my Cube since it came out, but it's rarely done anything. Once it cast Inferno Titan on four and jam for 12, but generally it's just a 2/1 for 2.

Part of the issue is that it's in red. In red aggro, a lot of your stuff already has haste. Control is usually splashing red for burn and doesn't want a piker. Spells matters decks probably don't really care about it. For me, it's done best in R/G ramp, but that deck doesn't see play often.

Best case scenario outside of a real ramp deck is probably the aggressive deck where you're, say, playing two three-drops that don't have haste on turn 4 and jamming with them, but that's asking a lot to make it work right.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Okay, maybe this is just me but has demonic tutor really been that insane for people in draft? Does it need to be that much shittier?

This reads funny if you interpret it to mean "Demonic Tutor is already shitty, do we need a card that's even shittier?"

...

I'm assuming you don't really think Demonic Tutor is shitty, do you? :)
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
This reads funny if you interpret it to mean "Demonic Tutor is already shitty, do we need a card that's even shittier?"

...

I'm assuming you don't really think Demonic Tutor is shitty, do you? :)

I don't think it's shitty, but I wouldn't say it's that great.

Take impulse for example. Card's alright, better and worse than ponder/preordain in a few ways, nothing too huge or splashy.
Unless you're specifically finding one card to complete a combo, you're trading sorcery for looking at a few more cards. If you need natural order DT is better, impulse is probably better if you're playing a control deck and want to look for "a removal spell" or "a threat" or "some card draw".
Sure DT is better, but not so much so that I feel you need an extra mana and to hand your opponent negate every time you cast it
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I don't think it's shitty, but I wouldn't say it's that great.

Take impulse for example. Card's alright, better and worse than ponder/preordain in a few ways, nothing too huge or splashy.
Unless you're specifically finding one card to complete a combo, you're trading sorcery for looking at a few more cards. If you need natural order DT is better, impulse is probably better if you're playing a control deck and want to look for "a removal spell" or "a threat" or "some card draw".
Sure DT is better, but not so much so that I feel you need an extra mana and to hand your opponent negate every time you cast it

Exactly. I remember LSV talking about DT in cube, and he suggested it was an overrated card based on essentially the same argument.

We've certainly had our share of bad drafters stuff tutors into decks that have no business running them, leading to some pretty comical plays (DT to play a leashed rakdos cackler is still my favorite).
 
If DT is getting lands more often than not, you're not running enough lands, or just not drafting enough fixing. It's so good in almost every non-aggro deck. I suppose its only fair in random BG value deck, but then you can be tutoring for kill spell or finisher or something. idk. Really really good
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I don't think I ever ran Demonic Tutor because it's not that interesting (even though I got one of those beautiful Divine vs Demonic ones lying around), but calling the card shitty is another thing :) Then again, I'm one of those guys who refuses to play with tutors in his commander decks (save for specific tutors like Sunforger, Rampant Growth and Dimir House Guard).
 

CML

Contributor
I enjoy Tutors in Cube and love how most of them don't fit into most decks. No way Gravecrawler beats wants Vampiric or even Demonic Tutor. However, their applications are broad enough that they are not poisony -- you can Mystical Tutor for your Reanimation spell, sure, but also for Terminus or whatever. I like decks that have intricate webs of synergy and like that Tutors can help bolster those webs -- Cube decks could use more consistency than is offered by the norm; that's why we have 4 Brainstorms, 4 Gravecrawlers, extra fetches and so on, it's fun if both decks at least try to do something every game, and there's no way to build a Cube in such a way that DT, easily the best of them, would be an issue the same way it would be in any Constructed format.

That being said, I go back and forth specifically on DT. The power level of the Reanimator decks is high and I don't want to make it higher, maybe this suggests I should curb Reanimator but then my graveyard themes would be weakened and uh I'm not really sure. On the other hand, decks like "Imperial Recruiter for Eidolon of Blossoms, Academy Rector for Pharika, try to Resto + Kiki somehow" dependent on super-sweet tutors that are still conditional, could use the extra help. I don't have DT in but based on my context there are arguments for both sides. Without high-power combo decks, in slightly more streamlined and faster environments like Wadds's, I'd run DT for sure and expect it to be a lot of fun.
 
I'm with chris and CML here. DT is pretty good, I first pick it a lot, but I do that out of preference, in cubes with any eye for balance it's not the nuttiest thing ever. Remember we don't play a lot of niche silver bullet answers here, you can't really build your deck that way to get the biggest advantage. This card is nuts in tinkery / mind twist environments, but is pretty normal as +2 mana to your most relevant spell right now.

I rather like it because I often build decks where it's a really neat question what I should be finding first. Like a couple weeks ago I had another Snapcaster Mage + Eternal Witness + Profane Command special and there were a lot of hand/boardstates that made me really think about what I needed to do now to live vs maximum lategame value.
 
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