[SCD] Tasigur, the Golden Fang

[Vacrix]

his biggest problem in legacy is Karakas, but he seems worth testing.

While an opposing Karakas could be to his detriment, our own Karakas could help to protect him as well. He's definitely powerful, but supposing he is an alternative to goyf also supposes that he'd be 'replacing' goyf in current archetypes. Of course, recasting him if you've bounced him with Karakas means you've already delved your yard.. but its still card advantage if you can manage to replay him again later.

Legendary though is a pretty big set back. Tombstalker also dodges decay, also delves, but he has evasion, he dodges Karakas, and the extra point of power can speed the clock up a full turn. He costs significantly more though, and is harder to compare to goyf, costing somewhere between 8 and 2 instead of 5 and 1.

The ability looks like it would be good in a shell that includes Top and Deathrite Shaman. DRS allows you to sculpt your yard a little better so the ability is more relevant and top lets you sculpt your library so you know when to mill yourself. I could see Dark Confidant fitting in there as well considering Top. If you play these cards though, its more difficult to justify board sweepers like Deed, Toxic Deluge, EE, etc. because you stand to lose Confidants and DRS to them. Top also suggests Counterbalance.. Tasigur, costing 5, is actually quite good for Counterbalance considering an opposing FoW or AdN.

Also, if you want to gain more control over his ability.. I'd say other spells and/or creatures with delve would be preferred. Soulflayer doesn't seem to be talked about too much. It costs between 6 and 2.. which is a little more comparable to Goyf than Tombstalker. He seems like he wants to be played with Entomb or something.. and is likely cooler than he is effective.

[tescrin]

Most of the time it's probably going to be land,

You will get a land precisely 0% of the time.

but there's definitely the opportunity to occasionally screw yourself. Opponent has Bridge in play and you flop Decay and Goyf...guess what you're getting?

This is the same argument Mill decks use. I will now start running Cathartic Adept.


Again, IMO, put him where you'd normally put dark confidant and you'll probably be able to make it work. I love my DCs, but they don't reliably draw cards either because they die *a lot.* this guy is weak to precisely one popular/common removal spell and a land ran in ~2 decks while being run next to a (probable) 4 Wasteland.

[Cire]

It's kind of an easy-out but "it's a meta call" seems fair, right -- are you going to get Karakas'd out of keeping him in play? Might want to look at a more different Delve thing.

Yeah pretty much - but I do think this card is still being undervalued.

Anyway here's a table I came up with. IMO you can run 2-4 delve creatures alongside DRS and Goyf without any problems. So instead of thinking if you will run them instead of Goyf, think whether you would run them alongside gofy.

Creature	Pros	Cons
Goyf	Without any effort he is a 4/5 for 1G Sometimes He is more than a 4/5 Immune to Karakas Playable with Dark Confidant	He is vulnerable to Abrupt Decay He is vulnerable to Countertop He is "shrinkable"
Tasigur	He can be cast for 1 mana Delving 4 cards to cast him for 2 or 5 cards to cast him for 1 is easy by turn 2-3 His ability may give you late game advantage Karakas may be used to save him He is not vulnerable to Abrupt Decay or Countertop	Delving still requires work, and makes him vulnerable to gravehate Vulnerable to Karakas
Tombstalker	He is 5/5 with flying. He is not vulnerable to Abrupt Decay or Countertop	Delving 5 cards to cast him for 3 or 6 cards to cast him for 2 is hard to do by turn 2-3
Hooting Mandrils	Unlike Tasigur, this card has a form of evasion in trample	Missing an extra point of toughness means that if opposing goyf was not shrunk down then this card would lose one on one.

[Valtrix]

I'm definitely going to flip Terminus to counter Tasigur :P

In other news, I think Tasigur is quite good.

[TsumiBand]

A 'pro' for any of the Black options may well be "doesn't require Green mana".

That is to suggest that, like... UB can use Tasigur at least as well as BG. With the added benefit of having but two colors to borrow against when concerned with Wasteland and other unfun things.

I guess maybe "pro" or "con" is less accurate than "fac" but whatever.

Also with a Delve guy you will never be tempted to look at outside card types. Theoretically you never need to play anything beyond lands, creatures, and instants. That's pseudo-Goyf hate in and of itself; you don't have to play any card types that would inflate your opponent's Goyf artificially. Make 'em work for that 4/5 and up, nawmean?

[Richard Cheese]

You will get a land precisely 0% of the time.

Oops! RTFC, myself!

This is the same argument Mill decks use. I will now start running Cathartic Adept.

I'm not sure what mill decks or argument you're talking about. My point is that giving your opponent the choice of what card you get is going to bite you on the ass sometimes. It's the same reason Vexing Devil has never seen much play, you're just giving them the opportunity to choose whatever they can deal with most easily.

I just think if you run him, you either want ways to take advantage of your yard, and/or you want to be manipulating your draws so you can take advantage of the "bin 2" part regardless of what you get back. With Top or Library, dude becomes a reusable fetchland on a stick.

[tescrin]

What I mean is, you're taking the chance of milling the wrong card and not drawing it; which is exactly the same thing that someone spamming Hedron Crab is thinking. The chance of you drawing Decay as your first card for the turn was the same as the chance of you binning that card next to goyf; the consideration that you've somehow lost a resource you never had is a...

Mental Misstep

It's hard to describe because we see that card in the grave as a missed opportunity since *this time* we would've drawn it. However, we didn't lose anything *real* because this is where the actual instance of luck just happened to bite us.

EDIT: I agree that library manipulation makes him better since you can float the card you need for your draw.

[Cire]

I just think if you run him, you either want ways to take advantage of your yard, and/or you want to be manipulating your draws so you can take advantage of the "bin 2" part regardless of what you get back. With Top or Library, dude becomes a reusable fetchland on a stick.

I think that's the trap with him. His ability is like a PW's ultimate. Nice to have, but hardly important. What makes him good is the fact that he is a 1 mana goyf most of the times that is immune to many things goyf is subject to and can shrink opposing goyfs. Building a deck to abuse the ability is missing the point.

[iostream]

I think that's the trap with him. His ability is like a PW's ultimate. Nice to have, but hardly important. What makes him good is the fact that he is a 1 mana goyf most of the times that is immune to many things goyf is subject to and can shrink opposing goyfs. Building a deck to abuse the ability is missing the point.

I agree. In fact, it makes me wonder if one should just play Gurmag Angler instead if you're in the market for an extra fat, non-evasive body. I'm not sure how important the extra mana is compared to Angler's immunity to Karakas.

[Tokugawa]

In the position of "Goyf No. 5-6", usually Gurmag Angler and Tasigur won't make significant differences...

But Gurmag Angler has an ultra-ugly art...so people may start their playtesting with Tasigur.

[keys]

I'm willing to bet that most decks that play this guy will also feature Abrupt Decay, which means Submerge will still be a beating, the same way it is against Tombstalker.

Jace, as well.

[wcm8]

I'm willing to bet that most decks that play this guy will also feature Abrupt Decay, which means Submerge will still be a beating, the same way it is against Tombstalker.

Jace, as well.

Yeah, but that's all kind of a moot point. Tombstalker generally gets sided out against StP/Jace/Karakas/Rest in Peace decks anyways, mostly he was there to beat on RUG and Jund by matching/outsizing Goyf as well as dodging Bolt and Decay. Tasigur is similar except that he will often only cost 1 mana and often come down earlier, and additionally has the upside of breaking stale-mate topdeck draw-go scenarios via his ability in the late game.

I think that Tasigur only costing 1 is *very* relevant against RUG since they have Stifle/Daze/Wasteland and can cut you off from reaching BB. Tombstalker's extra power and flying is certainly relevant, but I think overall Tasigur is better. And regarding Submerge -- just as with Tombstalker, ideally you would try to only fetch out Underground Seas and get your Green mana via DRS activations, thus avoiding the issue and stranding the card in their hand. Obviously this doesn't always work out, but a smart BUG pilot can often mitigate the risk of Submerge and at the very least avoid walking into a Shuffle-effect blow out.

For BUG Delver, we are talking about 1, maybe 2 max slots at most. Which creature is 'best' to run as an additional threat to go along with DRS/Delver/Goyf is pretty much a toss up and comes down to a case-by-case basis, which even changes depending on the particular gamestate. There is just as much situational value to running TNN, Clique, Snapcaster, etc. and it mostly comes down to which matchup you expect to confront most commonly and how the rest of your deck is constructed.

Also let's not always assume that he'd be only featured in BGx decks, as Tasigur could just as easily find his way into Esper and Grixis lists. I'm sure Esper Stoneblade wouldn't mind playing a couple copies of "tarmogoyf" if it didn't put much strain on its mana. I think it may take awhile for him to catch on as a format staple, but it wouldn't surprise me if he becomes just as commonly run as Format all-stars like V. Clique, Snapcaster Mage, Stoneforge Mystic, etc. Many of these creatures met similar initial skepticism until tournament performance proved their viability.

[TsumiBand]

I wouldn't want to prognosticate about Tasigur's ability to rise to the level of any given staple creature, but it is definitely worth pointing out that it need not be in a Green list. With everything that implies; one possibility being lists that were coerced into Forests because of Goyf can begin to look to other colors (or just fewer, and therefore make Wasteland less damaging). Another being re-evaluating whether to run Dark Confidant or some other draw in Black*. Maybe Confidant keeps some decks BG while others drop Bob for Tasigur and other tools, and very different Black/x decks emerge.

EDIT: The idea being that, hey it sucks to draw a 6 mana spell off of Dark Confidant, however it's worth the 4/5ness to run it, so now I gotta pick one or keep losing to myself on the draw

[tescrin]

But that's what I'm saying, you can slide him in where DC sits and he'll probably (over the course of the game) draw as many cards as however many DCs you'd lay down, because DC dies fast and doesn't kill people. I would not be surprised if Junk/Jund eventually adopt this guy (or the much more rare prospect that Esper/BUG/BUR would.) We'll find out as people try him out. I'll probably use him as Goyf 5-7 and just have lots of fat. It's notable that it make Deluge in the main more attractive too.

[nedleeds]

You're trading vulnerability to Karakas for immunity against Abrupt Decay.

Hooting Mandrills. I agree about Karakas being the downer. If it weren't for the magic land of Unsummoning many other legends would be more viable. Thalia skirts this because she's cheap and pretty absurd. Griselderp and Emraderp are obviously retarded and rarely get actually cast. Other interesting in between legends like Doran languish under the oppression of Karakas (or Tarmogoyf being the great obsoletor)

[Richard Cheese]

But that's what I'm saying, you can slide him in where DC sits and he'll probably (over the course of the game) draw as many cards as however many DCs you'd lay down, because DC dies fast and doesn't kill people. I would not be surprised if Junk/Jund eventually adopt this guy (or the much more rare prospect that Esper/BUG/BUR would.) We'll find out as people try him out. I'll probably use him as Goyf 5-7 and just have lots of fat. It's notable that it make Deluge in the main more attractive too.

Not trying to hate on Tasigur, but you should check out Siege Rhino if you're just looking for more boots on the ground. Granted there's a huge difference in cost, but the immediate impact, Trample, and GSZ-comparability has made him an all star for me so far.

[Zupponn]

Something of note is that if you are facing a Goyf and you have land and creature in your graveyard and you activate Tasigur's ability and flip instant and sorcery, you just grew the opponent's Goyf.

Also, if TNN becomes more popular, both the Mandrills and Tombstalker might be better.

[Sandro95]

Check out my article on Tasigur in Grixis Delver!

http://legitmtg.com/competitive/brew...e-golden-fang/

[Tylert]

Any good result with tasigur this weekend? did not see him on camera in the SCG open.

[wcm8]

Any good result with tasigur this weekend? did not see him on camera in the SCG open.

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15913

15th and 22nd place played 2 copies in BUG Delver, which I feel is the correct number for that deck.