An iconic card that can do some crazy things but also lead to highly repetitive sequences or a feeling of helplessness when you know they can just find the perfect trump to whatever your plan is at any time. The shuffling is pretty obnoxious too. Is the upside worth it?
I don't think it leads to highly repetitive sequences nor a feeling of helpness.
The card is a repeteable tutor but a tutor that requires both tempo and mana and which requires you to discard other cards. Ah, and it's card disadvatange until you get an engine going! This means it's far from a matter of finding "the perfect trump" because that trump comes at a cost to you. Remember, too, that it costs one mana to use and you still need to play your creature.
It's also unlikely you have so many trumps. Sure, you might pick up a Mystic Snake and a Reclamation Sage but you are not going to have a counter to most of the things your opponents do. I mean, what's the trump to the typical Ux control deck?
There are also quite a few constraints put on the card, some of them caused by the format:
- You need mana dorks. Playing survival is a tempo hit and requires mana every turn. You need to play creatures on top of that and many of them will be 3 or 4 mana.
- You need to draft a high amount of creatures.
- You need a deck that works without survival. There's redundancy in Fauna Shaman.
- You need to interact with your opponent or you become "bad midrange". This is a huge
- You need a way to turn discarding into an advantage
- Often your deck needs to be three-colours
In my experience, these three cards go into the same kind of deck:
With some experience and the right cube environment you can also do things like:
