Pro stretching it very far regarding Glenn Jones and Kent Ketter.Originally Posted by Lemnear
They get paid, ergo they are professional writers. I did not mention the word "pro" to describe article quality or their accomplishments as players.
Knowing now that SCG altered Carstens article to adjust the shard-names to fit with the current in-pritnt product for sale, I wonder how much SCG influences the content/choice of articles for the aspect of selling cards/boosters? For me, like 80%+ of their articles do nothing else than hyping chase rares/mythics and advertise decks with those while you have plenty of their own advertising left and right of the article-frame you are reading.
What is the point of SCG Premium these days if you pay a subscribe fee just too read WotC/SCG ads? I can barely remember the last meaningful article they had there....
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Well, shit.
Speaking from experience, as long as the quality of the work is up to snuff, writers are completely free to choose what they want to write about and the exact content of their articles. I mean, I'm sure if I wrote a piece to the effect that SCG is a terrible shop and that you should go to Channel Fireball instead, it'd probably not get published and I suspect if I went ahead and told my readers that they should stop playing Magic because the game is terrible that would probably not see the light of day, either.
There hasn't been a single time when I've been told what to write or what subject to write about. The closest it has ever gotten to that was the "theme week" a while ago when we were asked to provide Legacy content if there was anything at all we felt like writing about it in the week preceding a GP (and I'm relatively sure I ignored a Modern theme week at some point without any consequences) or the general admonition to "write something that has to do with Khans/set X if we have anything to say" after a new set is released, which, while obviously of interest for SCG to sell cards, is common sense given that a new set means new cards that usually at least bear thinking about.
I assume - and I mean assume - the Open winners that write about their winning tournament and deck are bound to stay with that subject for their opening article at least.
In short, any perceived or real weakness/overhyping of cards stems strictly from the writers themselves getting overly excited or not knowing what they're talking about.
Agreed.Here are some questions that need to be answered about TC from the standpoint of Legacy:
1. How many cards are placed in your GY in the typical game by turn 5 or so?
This is a strong indicator of whether or not TC will be acceptable for you in multiples or not.
You criterion is fine, your conclusion really isn't.2. How many opening hands will want to do other things than place a card or two in the GY on each early turn?
If TC relies on you fetching lands twice in the first three turns and casting Brainstorm or Ponder when you otherwise might not do that then it is not only not a good card, it is a bad card. In those situations TC is leading you off the path to victory. The fact that fetchlands, Ponder and Brainstorm are often best played after the first wave of exchanges has occurred doesn't help in the determination.
If your hand is good and has stuff to do, you can just play the game as usual and get around to playing Treasure Cruise once your hand isn't good enough any more (assuming your deck fulfills point #1), at which point you should easily be able to delve it in a deck that has a ton of fetchlands, cantrips and non-permanent spells. If your hand doesn't do anything meaningful, you likely want to cast your cantrips anyway. So in the end what you're saying boils down to "when you have a hand that doesn't do anything and you also don't want to cast the cantrips you have or when your deck is all permanents, Treasure Cruise is bad"?
This is missing the word "relevantly" before weakened. Treasure Cruise might weaken Deathrite Shaman in the abstract, for example, but I've yet to have trouble with their interaction in testing.3. How many assets in your list are weakened by the inclusion of several delve cards that are then played?
Well, I regularly keep hands in Miracles that have two Miracles in them, so I contest that you always have to mulligan those hands in the first place. I've also actually been quite happy opening the first Treasure Cruise in my seven just to be sure I'll actually have one come turn 4, so the main problem would come from having multiples - which conveniently are blue.4. Would multiple TC's in your opening hand ever be acceptable?
You can't open a grip that has two or three cards that have no applicability to the early game state. How many mulligans will having 3 or 4 TC's in the list add to the 30-35% rate that is prevalent already?
True and yes, yes it is.This argues really strongly that when you do decide to add Treasure Cruise to a list you should remove mid to late game cards for it, which will often be finishers or sweepers. Is TC really that good?
Believing that the opponent drawing three extra cards isn't going to kill you is like saying "them having Dark Confidant doesn't matter as long as I don't care about it being a 2/1." You realize that they need to have Dark Confidant in play for three full turns to get ahead to the same point, right? If you don't realize that the extra cards are killing you, you should probably not Bolt that guy ever again.I've done a bunch of testing with it already and I will not be playing a copy of it this weekend in the BUG list I prefer at the moment. If I see myself losing games to it that will change however I doubt that is going to happen. I plan to be holding Counterspell on turn 4 with two mana untapped when my opponent tries to cast his first one. I might not even counter it, as it will not be the thing that is going to kill me if it resolves.
Instead of thinking about your opponent's Treasure Cruise, you should maybe change your testing slightly: While you're playing, every time you're about to draw a card, check your graveyard and ask yourself if you'd like to be drawing a delve spell right now. In my experience so far once I had them in my deck, I was hoping to hit one almost every turn after turn 3 instead of anything else in my deck a vast majority of the time, at least when I didn't have one already (and often I was hoping to draw a second copy when casting the first one).
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I think the biggest reason why people across the landscape have misevaulated Treasure Cruise is because they have not played Ancestral Recall enough. I mean this. When you draw three cards, you have more cantrips, fetchlands, Lightning Bolts, and such to do things with. You achieve threshold the second time (yes, I'm totally using this word here to represent payment for TC's actual cost) a fair bit faster than what folks would figure because we just don't get to do this ever.
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That makes a lot of sense, actually. Burst card advantage on this level at a cost you could actually reasonably pay is (was) completely absent from non-Vintage formats for such a long time - and is such an indirect way to get an insurmountable advantage - that it's really hard to evaluate by gut feeling alone if you aren't used to casting Ancestral or chaining Gushs. I guess coming to Legacy from a decade of Vintage has its advantages.
/edit: Thinking about it, this might actually explain why so many people seem to (mistakenly) think that Brainstorm is close to Ancestral Recall in power level. If the closest things to Ancestral you've ever cast are Concentrate and Brainstorm, that actually seems like something you could reasonably believe to be true. It isn't.
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BBD played 1 TC never found it and generally had 15-20 cards in his graveyard and none in his hand, losing 1-2 to Shardless Bug with UW Stoneblade.
Bet he wishes he played more Treasure Cruise.
He never fetches, he kepts his lands in hand despite having to discard to Liliana anyway...
He played a fetch and did not use it then played Price of Progress after playing his fetch, so that his opponent had lethal on board.
He attacked with Grim Lavamancer although he could have activated it if he used his fetchland, instead both of his Lavamancers gets Maelstrom Pulse'd...
Newsflash: burn players are usually pretty terrible. Another reason why I hate (losing to) the deck.
Let's not derail this thread talking about Burn though.
I think the reason people are skeptical about Treasure Cruise is because it's an 8cc sorcery that you can delve to reduce the cost of. It doesn't do anything for you in the initial exchanges except feed Force of Will. Then assuming you can delve 5 cards for it it becomes +2 card advantage at sorcery speed. If you delve for it and it is countered, well the second one isn't going to do anything to help you in time to avoid a defeat.
I played Ancestral Recall in almost every list I played from 1994 to 1996. It was an instant that costunconditionally and it was +2 card advantage. That's an extremely strong card.
I had the pleasure of resolving a Deathrite Shaman and then Dazing a Swords to Plowshares yesterday. The sick look on my opponent's face when I did this told me that something special was happening. The something special turned out to be the two Treasure Cruises, one of which he resolved on turn 4 for 4 mana and a delve of 3 or 4. I couldn't quite keep up with him with the DRS. I Hymned him for two of the cards he drew off of it and the next turn he cast the second one. That was the turn I resolved my second Goyf and the turn after that he was dead.
Was fun.
I'm guessing all he had to do to stay even in the match was to be holding business in hand instead of those two TC at the start. 3 land, two TC, what else can you be holding that will let you live long enough in Legacy to resolve your unwieldy card advantage in time?
BTW, I did lose a game late yesterday to a resolved Treasure Cruise. Earth to Legacy meta, sometimes you lose games to spells resolved mid to late game. It's not like TC is special or anything in that regards. I'd have lost to Jace, the Mind Sculptor in that situation just as easily.
UR Delver with 4 Treasure Cruise into the top 4 right now.
Go go Bob!
Last edited by Mon,Goblin Chief; 09-28-2014 at 09:30 PM. Reason: Decided the "Told ya so!" was unnecessary.
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Annnnd the cat's outta the bag.
Nice work, Bob.
they haunt minds...
4x Treasure Cruise wins the tournament. Naysayers can shut up now, right?
UR isn't even necessarily the best shell for it. I can see a UW or UWr Delver list being just as/more powerful. Maybe even a BUG list can come up with the right configuration. Point is, a deck that can rip through its deck and play a bunch of Ancestral Recalls is going to have a huge advantage in any fair matchup that is trying to win via card advantage. Combo, of course, loses to Delver strategies in general. So you really end up getting the best of both worlds by running this card.
Wow, sick finals. First time I've seen a Grisel get raced straight up by tiny creatures. Nice. Job. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
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Some of us knew the instant the blurry spoiler image hit the internet. ;)
Pretty sure his plan was just to spike the tournament because everyone at the LGS figured out that TC was nuts and enough people going there would probably be debating it still.
I like that you can tap City of Traitors for 2, play a land, sac City, then use the City to feed delve....
Yes you can put me in the knew it was good once the spoiler was out. Its obvious how it's great in delver. But we'll see how oppressive the card is. My initial fear was that it would force legacy into lists that start with 4 brainstorm 4 ponder 4 force 4 daze 4 delver 4 cruise + everything else.
Hopefully I'm wrong and treasure cruises power level isn't that high. I've got my foil cruises already and i'll be pissed if they go the way of Mental Misstep. No point arguing with the doubters when you can go out there and just buy up all the foil cruises while they are busy doubting.
Think UR is by far the best shell for it, so I am not surprised.
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