Vehicles are essentially equipment with 0 equip cost. Equipment is generally unplayable in constructed formats except for the handful of very, very pushed pieces + SfM. Without SfM, Swords see almost zero play in Modern, Batterskull pretty minimal. And those cards are still really powerful, in a vacuum. But older formats are too fast and the removal is too efficient.
So vehicles will be comparable. If they print some very, very pushed vehicle (or Vehicle forge Mystic) they might see play, but those things are unlikely to happen because they'd break Standard.
sooo, i got some games in on cockatrice and tested 2 smugglers copter. i'm playing some number of ancient tombs in most of my builds and turn 1 copter into turn 2 thalia(or just about any good 2-3 drop with a static effect or ETB ability) is absolutely amazing...like really amazing. and that is the most important thing copter has over avenger, it can come down much earlier while being muuuch easier on the mana. also, the loot is pretty good as well (better than vigilance for sure).
and about the win more part, i dont think it is. at least it didnt felt that way. you dont need and usually dont want to attack with a lot of your creatures anyway (revoker,recruiter,prelate,sfm etc.), so finding something to tap was really easy.
also, copter is really pushed already. dunno what else people expect.
im not saying that it is better than avenger, but it definitely has its merits and i really encourage you guys to give it a try and compare for yourself. in my testing i really liked it (though the sample size was rather small)
If you have two creatures in play and they kill one of them, you now have 1 creature in play. If you have two creatures in play, one of them is a Vehicle and they kill one of them, you now have 0 creatures in play. It's very easy to come up with dream openings with this card, but it's also just as easy to come up with ways you get totally blown out. Vs decks with a decent amount of removal you are playing a card that could very likely do nothing all game. Vs tempo decks you are giving them an easy way to tempo you out. As a topdeck with an empty board, it's about as bad as you can get. The upside needs to be really high for a card like that to be consistently good, and it's not. I don't think it's far from being playable, maybe if it had hexproof, or you just drew a card instead of looting - both of those things seem nuts, but I think about as pushed as you'd need to see to make it worth the downside.
Seeing as how vehicles are an entirely new kind of card, I don't know that any of us can claim to know how to gauge their power. That said, my guess is that this is a card that could be good (dunno), but probably not in a deck as tight as this one has become. We do not seem to have a particular need for it.
That is, Smuggler's Copter does not pair well with Vial, Recruiter or Mystic. It gets dinged by both TGT and Prelate. It does not fill a role that this deck lacks. It does not strike me as being priced more aggressively than, say Serra Avenger. So, it would have to be pretty darn OP to earn a few spots, and it looks like it is not clearly OP.
The only remaining thing to consider is if its status as an artifact that temporarily becomes a creature has some sort of advantage. I like it against Terminus because your newly deployed creature can drive it despite summoning sickness. There are bound to be other corner cases that make it look good. If there are enough of these, I think we should consider it, but it does not look like it.
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It's 'a new card type' but if Smuggler's Copter were an equipment like so:
Smuggler's Jetpack - (2)
Equip: 0
Equipped creature becomes a 3/3 flying, haste, loots when it attacks, when it dies put it back into play and sacrifice Smuggler's Jetpack.
There would be few meaningful differences. You can't SfM it - that's the biggest one.
I would say it's worse with Terminus than equipment, not better, because when they instant speed Terminus on your turn you're losing your equipment too.
Thoughts on D&T lists from this weekend's Legacy event?
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck..._num=8&limit=8
an "imperial" list with no imperial recruiters
and a more traditional mono-white list with 3 recruiters and a singleton Prelate.
Well, there really is no reason to play imperial recruiter even in W/R lists now that Recruiter of the guard is available. It looks like the right number of recruiters is gonna vary between 2 and 3 (I still prefer 3, but people are really enamored with their 4x Flickerwisp it seems). Not playing Prelate in the maindeck (W/R list) is pure nonsense, and 1 copy is still probably too few (Mono-White list), although he did have access to a second one in the board). Aven Mindcensor is somewhat intriguing due to its flash ability when you can vial in recruiter, but it is probably still too underpowered in nowaday's DnT and outclassed by other options. I like the singleton spirit of the Labyrinth in the W/R list, I've been playing it all along instead of the 3rd Revoker even though everyone seems to have dropped it. I just think that the upside of having it in there far outweights the inconvenience of having a semi-dead card in certain MUs.Originally Posted by AsmodeusDM
Ugh, just saw the 0 Cavern of Souls in the mono white list, and only 1 in the red splash list... Not a fan of some of these choices at all, I wonder whether they were dictated by card availability issues... Overall, the placing list from Ovino XI and BoM look a lot more polished...
The tragic thing about Recruiter of the Guard being better than Imperial Recruiter: Imperial Taxes was a really fantastic deckname.
Yeah no doubt.... I believe the 2nd place omni-tell deck was running a steam vents over a volcanic!
Well, well, well... Looks like there's still some inherent value to the Blood Moon lockout after all.
What jumps out at me are the choices of Aven Mindcensor as another flyer, and Spirit of the Labyrinth as a lockout card/beater. Specifically, I wonder if this build considers both part of their "two-way" cards (cf. the Donelson interview). It could also be that both the Blood Moon mana lockout/threat of mana lockout also provide incidental value to hedge the opponents gameplan in a similar way to a card like Serra Avenger.
(I understand Anax and Cymede wasn't a great idea, but I was trying to find something that could occupy the same space as Serra Avenger for a R/W build; Grim Lavamancer was more interesting than good--I'd considered it because its mana cost was much easier, and could be non-parasitically Vialed in--but I agree Pia and Kiran Nalaar is better, even if a little harder to cast).
Probably the most interesting thing about these lists is that both had 0 copies of Frank. That's kinda surprising. Maybe in this tournament's metagame it was a little too slow?
We should really cut that Frank joke off now. It was funny, and a well-made point, but it really decreases the readability of the thread to outsiders and newcomers if we keep using that. THC is a very clear, brief abbreviation; why don't we stick with that?
Back on topic, I'm skeptical about the use of vehicles in this shell, but I won't outright dismiss it. I've seen some eldrazi players mucking around with the vehicles as well, so they may be playable in some capacity in Legacy, though I don't think it is in our deck.
That could confuse the thread's many drug users. I see no serious issues with people giving the card a permanent nickname as a way to ensure we never overvalue it due to weird emotional attachments. It will be a boon to us all.
Yes, it is kinda surprising.
However, it doesn't really mean anything. We don't know how those lists would have fared with THC. We don't know how many other DnT lists were playing THC in the tournament, and if their inferior results were due to running THC or other factors (bad luck, player's mistakes, other suboptimal card choices). We don't know what the metagame looked like in that tournament, and whether THC was "a little too slow" for it (not that it is particularly slow compared to other 3 drops), and neither did the two pilots going in. In fact, we don't even know how many players were in the event (not too many, I would guess), or how competitive it was (probably not very). When you look at the fact that the runner-up was playing Steam Vents instead of Volcanic Island (most likely for budget reasons), it should be pretty obvious that we shouldn't read too much into the deck choices of the 14th and 15th seed...
I agree with Medea, it's better calling cards by their name (or by understandable abbreviations). Of course, everyone who reads the thread frequently will know about the frank joke, but new users, people who are here only occasionally, and so on, will never understand what is "frank" and either be confused or write a post asking for the meaning.
Nothing personal, Iatee, i think it's just better to avoid confusion
I believe this is the reason why I have difficulty taking seriously the discussion around THC is the strong, emotional attachment to the card. From the day it was spoiled, it was deemed the second coming, and was some hailed it as a staple of the deck before even sleeving it up. I believe that Iatee's point that the cards name was the largest part of this emotional response is important; if you're trying to build an optimal deck, objectivity is important. Divorcing Thalia, Guardian of Thraben from Thalia, Heretic Cathar is significantly easier to do.
I quoted this post because it represents a strong emotional response to criticism. Rather than postulate as to why THC may not have made the cut and discussing that, it resorts to dismissive and thought-killing arguments. Sticking our fingers in our ears, closing our eyes, and ignoring data that contradicts what we hold to be true is not how we delve to the facts concerning the matter at hand. If we assume that everyone makes decisions for salient reasons, if THC is in fact the correct choice for a given metagame, one should be able to construct a good counterargument. Lets not make THC a sacred cow.
This all said, I in no way trying to imply that everybody who runs THC does so purely for emotional reasons. I do urge everyone to test her objectively. If she makes the cut, that's great! As long as we take note of the situations where she is bad, and decide that those situations are worth the opportunity cost, we're being good deckbuilders.
Who is Frank?
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
We are all Frank.
His name is Frank Paulson
Quality discussion, gentlemen.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Frank is Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
Iatee was making a point that people would be a lot more skeptical if Thalia, Heretic Cathar had been named Frank, Heretic Cathar, because the mental association with an already existing 4 of clouded people's judgment when evaluating THC for the deck. People started calling her Frank after that.
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