I think that's selling Batterskull short. For four mana you get a 4/4 vigilance lifelinker AND a 1/2 dude that can cheat in equipment. It's more than what you describe, as you can return it to your hand for 3 and equip it to a non-germ creature for 5 and have a really huge dude. If it's lying on the battlefield unquipped, you can do some cool tricks with it from Flickerwisp by blinking it and triggering the living weapon ability again. It's not just for blue decks and can work well with non-blue cards such as Flickerwisp and Mother of Runes.Originally Posted by ivanpei
I see more than others do because I know where to look.
I think Batterskull is really good, much better than I thought, when you actually get to the late game. I don't think most Zenith/Hierarch decks want to get to the late game though. It's worse than Jitte without the recursion effect in most matchups. I think the growing consensus that it is a control card and not a card for mid-range creature based decks is correct in this instance.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Yes. It is that impressive. If that card were printed it would be great against merefolk, zoo and anything playing little men that like to attack. Imagine playing him on turn 2 off of a stompy manabase.Think about it, is 4 mana for a 4/4 vigilance lifelinker that impressive? That's what batterskull pretty much is.
Now add in all the other great things batter skull and stoneforge mystic can do....
i was convinced by a friend to throw a Stoneforge/Equipment package into my Deadguy build at a 10-man weekly tournament (alongside Vampire Hexmage to hate out BUG Landstill, specifically). quite frankly if a Batterskull landed, it was game. if you expect mirrors you can add [card]Manriki-Gusari[card] as sick tech.
edit: and of course against Merfolk the Batterskull is a house. i kept 6 fish at bay one game.
They are all dependent on your creature package and the randomness that is your matchup. Sword of War Peace was aces high this past week ... but I was packing Mirran Crusaders. Equipping him with that weapon is simply a handshake. You make an argument about the protection the sword grants not being relevant because 'they'll just get swords'ed / bolted' in response, that's a terribly naive argument in a world of mental missteps, daze's etc..
Also that responce arguement is also strange as its like its never ever in topdeck mod for either players.
I'm Making a comparison between sobm and say sowp and soff where pro removal colours to you guys are great. Fact is, sobm also creates protection from TOPDECKED removal because it makes bears that can carry a sword. Protection from removal wise sobm is on par with the other swords. Pro colours are more relevant for on the board creatures which sobm shines against. As for sowp + mirran crusader, yeah if you had that going, any freaking sword will win you the game. That is the definition of win more. What about your sowp on a noble heirarch? That's not going to do anything.
You want cards that are good no matter what situation you are in, especially ones that dig you out of deep shit. Ive won so many games I shouldn't win by equipping a crappy mana dude or Sfm or random weenie with sobm and swinging past Goyfs, kotrs an folks. If they have removal, they will be gunning for your bigs first. You will very often Be left with tiny utility/mana dudes. That where sobm really shines. A noble heirarch with a sobm can swing everyturn past whatever green big and shut down 2 bigs. Swing get dude, equip sobm to bear, block. Next turn swing with equipped bear, get another bear, equip noble with sword, block 2 bigs. Repeat. That's how powerful that thing is.
I've found SoBaM to be a much better Equipment than I expected. Pro-Tarmogoyf/Knight and Pro-Jace is very relevant. Creating Wolves is nothing to sneeze at either. SoWaP seems fairly underpowered. If they have the removal, they'll likely use it in response to equip anyway.
Tom? Is that you? I thought you were going to go work on DnD?
I find the protections on swords to be much more relevant in the combat phase than against removal. As you said they will probably just destroy the creature in response. However, if you equip one of the creatures with 2 color protection with a sword that adds an additional 2 colors and some hitting power you have essentially made progenitus. Both of the mirroden knights become a 2 turn clock with the right sword equipped and are mostly unblockable/unkillable.
This makes you a progenitus for 8 or 9 mana (depending if you drew it or stoneforged it) which is much less mana efficient than natural order which is usually in the 4-5 mana range. However, you can play black or white.
Against aggressive decks with mostly small guys, active batterskull makes it impossible for them to win. *cough* merefolk *cough*.
Nice to know you finally agree with me :x
I don't agree with you, you just took part of my quote out of context because apparently that's something you do.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
My 2 cents, if your deck plays any number of Jace The Mind Sculptor Sword of Body and Mind should probably be in your equipment package. I agree with the sentiments made by several people in this thread in that it might actually be the best or 2nd best sword. It goes through/blocks goyfs/kotr/merfolk(without LoA obviously) and other relevant beaters/blockers, gives protection from an opposing Jace, and provides a body to protect your own Jace/put equipment on. The mill part is just gravy, although it is hilarious to keep swinging into an opposing control deck and mill Jace(s), swords to plowshares/wrath of god/answers, crucible of worlds, plus the extra bodies from the sword provides a very reasonable clock.
I had all of them in my sideboard of that StoneBlade deck I have been playing lately and the ones that ended up making the cut were Batterskull, Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice, with Sword of Body and Mind in the board.
Light and Shadow was the closest second to getting in there due to the protection colors mostly, but the recurring critters was a side benefit that was nice, but far from crushing. Feast and Famine was good while I had counterspells that required more 1 mana or a pitch, but after I pulled those, it quickly dropped from my list. I really never liked War and Peace much. I never seemed to want it. I don't play Crusaders either. I kind of thought he was win more from the start and had no utility past being a good damage dealer. Sworded up creatures usually are hitting pretty hard anyway.
I agree with Ivanpei for the most part.
Jitte and Batterskull are great targets against agro for SFM packages in agro and control decks respectively.
SoFaI is the Sword I want most when I'm free to connect since it's triggers are quite strong and SoBaM is the Sword I tutor most for a clogged 'field for pro Nacatl, Goyf, Knight, and Merfolk. SoFaF has some applications as discussed and the remaining two Swords strike me as underpowered in the current format.
Ye I really agree with many of you, im playing Jitte,Skull and SoBaM aswell, and I really like it to be honest. Once a big army of green fatties are here and I draw a SFM im kinda sure I can win / won already :)
But against Merfolk... I prefer taking Jitte or Batterskull, even with pro blue
Godspeed
Hey Guys,
It has been awhile since this thread was updated, but I was curious to see what people think.
In the current metagame, we have Rug Delver, Esper Deathblade, Esper Stoneblade, Bug tempo/control, jund, and to a lesser extent maverick and death and taxes as fair decks that you will commonly see at the upper tables; where utilizing the best equipment can make all the difference.
The question is:
In creature low decks with 4 stoneforges, what is best equip package?
In high creature decks with maybe 3 or less stoneforge mystics, what would you describe as optimal equip with to pair with stoneforge?
According to color protection, sword of light/shadow looks good on paper, with fire/ice being the best effect upon connecting. What are your opinions?
*checks dates*
Hoooollyyyyyyy balls, so THAT's why I just got done reading a bunch of pages of people saying shit like, "I dunno about this BATTERSKULL card man, it just seems like the flavor of the week to me" I was like wtf year is this. Apparently it's 2011 :/
What?? Nacatl? Who runs that anymore? Also Merfolk isn't the monster it used to be, so Sob&m really isn't warranted.
You do realize that this post is from 2011 don't you?
Obviously.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote