http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10760
This is Di is it not? I am surprised nobody linked this yet.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Yeah that's me. I actually haven't linked the last 4-5 articles I've written because of laziness/forgetfulness, but thanks for posting this here.
I never understood the hype of Baleful Strix. I can understand why it's good, as the card draw 'replaces' itself and it's a very effective blocker. I just never understood what was about the card that inspired people to build a deck around an otherwise reactive card, or try to squeeze it in existing archetypes that don't need the card (such as Tezzeret Affinity, the better Tezzeret deck :p).
True story tcg player has had better legacy articles than Scg premium for months.
westcoast degeneracy
Unless I am missing something 14 $ for a somewhat crappy uncommon card is just retarded! Some people should stop smoking stuff...
Tezzeret who practically enables the strix to actually do something and is an ok plansewalker goes for 7 while the strix, which alone does nothing, goes for 15$ and it is JUST an uncommon...,adadsadadadasdf !
Actually, Baleful Strix seems insane with Goblin Welder. If I built this UB Tezzeret deck, I wouldn't have been completely satisfied with Baleful Strix having just the role of a "goodstuff" card. I would have tried to abuse it with Welder.I saw countless decklists trying to abuse the card in a variety of ways, from Goblin Welder [...]
nothing ever really surfaced as anything remotely playable beyond tier three
Goblin Welder + Baleful Strix has been successful in Vintage. I would probably tried a similar list to this one. Why can't this combination succeed in Legacy?
Do you think it won't happen or do you think it just hasn't found a home in a Goblin Welder shell yet?
And yes, I think the Talisman and Signets are the real innovation and success to UB Tezzeret, not the Strix. It just provides good value.
Not being "completely satisfied" with Baleful Strix in that role is precisely the reason why I criticized every previous attempt at building with it in the article, whereas I praise Caleb for recognizing that the card is likely best suited as simply a "goodstuff" card. To me, it just seems awfully durdly otherwise, and trying to do far too much is the primary reason why those decks haven't been successful.
Now, of course Strix is insane with Welder; it has incredible synergy with it. However, the shell just hasn't been in place. You could argue that throwing Welders in that winning decklist could work, but I don't know if the manabase can reliably support it (or the deck for that matter, as it doesn't run nearly as many artifacts as a typical Welder deck does), what you would cut, or if it's even necessary in the first place. These decks are full of bombs already, and recurring Baleful Strix for a little value isn't going to break the strategy much further than what the deck is already capable of. Sure, you can quote a "Thirst, dump Wurmcoil Engine, Weld it" play, but at that point you're doing a watered-down impression of Reanimator.
To be fair, the first decklist i took to a tourney with Baleful Strix in it was Ubg Landstill, which my friend and i both piloted to a top 8 finish in that tournament (identical lists), which now is well over a month ago
There was some discussion of abusing Strix with Welder in this thread:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...rd-of-the-Meek
Baleful is a good card. Is it $15 good? Not a chance.
When you consider the scarcity of it? And the fact that every deck that does want it is playing it as a 4 of? It may be underwhelming as compared to standard cards of similar prices, but it is definitely a powerful card. And definitely worth the 15 dollars as you really have nothing that can quite do what he does.
I disagree with the assessment that Strix doesn't belong in other shells. Whether or not lists have been brewed that adequately use him is a solid point, but that doesn't mean they can't or don't exist.
I'm using him in an Affinity list that eschews the traditional aggro components to focus strictly on the combo elements, and in that list, he's phenomenal. He does everything in my list that the deck wants; card draw (Thoughtcast's 5-8), a body for Drum, a flying body for Plating, artifact count for Plating/Tezz/Thoughtcast/Opal, sac's to Thopter if he gets hit with removal (in resp), and the deathtouch can be used as an anti-aggro tool.
I do agree that the Talisman's should have been a no brainer for midrange Tomb-based decks a long time ago, since they are fundamentally similar to mana dorks to a deck like Maverick. The mana ramp is awesome, the color fixing is awesome, and I can see this possibly shaking up the way that Tomb-based decks get built going forward. They definitely provide an element of consistency to the manabase that those decks have been lacking.
I also like how he leverages Tezz and Jace to give the deck an amazing amount of card advantage and consistency, which is another element that has always been lacking in Tomb-based decks.
I disagree with some of his other card choices, but those points are irrelevant to this article.
Nice article at any rate, was a pretty straight forward read without any of the dumb filler I see in most articles.
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