[SCD] Blade Slicer

[morgan_coke]

Blade Slicer 2W
Human Artificer
When ~ this ~ etb put a 3/3 golem token into play
golems you control have first strike
1/1

When I first read the card I thought the token was dependent on the 1/1 staying in play, but it's not. Either survives independently of each other. Which means this is 4 power for three mana spread over two bodies. The mana cost says Angel Stompy or some kind of 2mana land aggro, possibly some kind of taxes deck. The two bodies suggest equipment, and it seems like it would pair very nicely with Stoneforge Mystic.

Is this actually legacy viable? a 4/4 for three normally isn't really, but do the two bodies make up for it in some decks, especially when paired with equipment? It's obviously not a format staple or anything, but might it have a place in some kind of white chalice deck? I think that might be a more conditional yes. But I'm not entirely sure. Any thoughts on this from the rest of you?

Theoretical list strictly for example making purposes:

4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
6x Plains
4x Flagstones of Trokair
4x Wasteland
4x Chrome Mox

4x Chalice of the Void
4x Trinisphere
3x Crucible of Worlds

4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Blade Splicer
4x Aven Mindcensor
4x Lodestone Golem
2x Elspeth, Knight Errant

3x Armageddon

1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of War and Peace

[Malchar]

It might be far-fetched, but you could consider using Razor Golem for more golem synergy. Its vigilance works quite well with Jitte. Also, first strike works great with any equipment in general. Also, according to the mtg salvation spoiler, the card in question is titled "Blade Splicer," which differs from the title of this thread.

[Kich867]

Could this be effective in an Astral Slide deck, effectively flooding the field with 3/3 tokens EOT or for blockers?

[dahcmai]

That's actually not horrible since typically Slide decks tend to have green and we all know how much good stuff lies in that direction. If anything Eternal Witness is sexy with slide and gets your little combo back in the event someone deals with it early. I like the idea, though I am working on another project. I'll have to keep this in mind if my other one turns out to be crap.

[Aggro_zombies]

Could this be effective in an Astral Slide deck, effectively flooding the field with 3/3 tokens EOT or for blockers?
Astral Slide already has ways to make tokens in this way, although the Splicer allows it to make beefier tokens for less mana than before.

The problem is that Astral Slide (the card) is not particularly powerful when active, and is also very slow to become active. Furthermore, in order to use it effectively, you need to dedicate a lot of your deck to cycling cards, many of which are weak individually; this increases your dependency on a 4x card that doesn't actually provide much payoff.

[Kich867]

I think that's ok though. It won't be the most competitive deck ever, but honestly, as a deck builder doesn't it get a little tiring to say: "I want to make a Bant Astral Slide deck, now after I fit in Swords / FOW / Brainstorm / Tarmogoyf / <insert any other "auto-include staple" of the format>, where can I fit in the deck that I actually want to play?"

And like you mentioned, this essentially lets Astral Slide play a 3/3 first strike for ~1-2 mana, or by saccing a land. It actually ends up creating a lot of card advantage when you can turn a single cycle into: Draw a card, put a 3/3 token with first strike onto the battlefield.

It's definitely a deck I've really wanted to make, I think it has some potential.

[Aggro_zombies]

Well, I mean...I've tried to get Astral Slide to work for years, because it's my favorite deck by a mile. What it needs isn't more awesome CiP guys, what it needs is a way to not suck without Astral Slide in play.

[morgan_coke]

Actually, and I feel pretty confident coming down on the authority in this, what Astral Slide needs to not suck is for the M10 rules change that eliminated damage stacking to go the fuck away. That change killed the decks' matchup against other creature based strategies, meaning it had to dedicate slots to fight the matches that Slide was supposed to be already winning for it. Which in turn took away slots that used to be dedicated to worse matchups. There are already way more playable/profitable ETB creatures than Slide can profitably use available, slightly upgrading one of those slots isn't going to turn things around. Mental Misstep does far more for the deck than anything I've seen printed since.. hmm.. Knight of the Reliquary maybe?

Not sucking without slide in play isn't hard, you just put slide into a bant, rock, or lands shell and play that game until slide shows up to generate crazy card advantage. Unfortunately without slide serving as CA AND a combat trick, the decks endgame is just way worse than it used to be.

[Aggro_zombies]

Not sucking without slide in play isn't hard, you just put slide into a bant, rock, or lands shell and play that game until slide shows up to generate crazy card advantage. Unfortunately without slide serving as CA AND a combat trick, the decks endgame is just way worse than it used to be.
Well, not exactly, because then you're just running a Bant, Rock, or Lands shell, but worse because you have this super resource-intensive engine whose best descriptor these days is "cute".

Generally, deck building with Astral Slide is a continuum. On the one hand, you can move towards making Astral Slide more awesome, but then your deck gets worse without Astral Slide in play (the classic problem for Survival decks of yesteryear). On the other hand, you can move away from Astral Slide, but the more you do that, the more it just becomes superfluous and a drag on your deck. There isn't a lot of middle ground.

[morgan_coke]

Eh. I've managed to find that middle ground a few times, but it's narrow and moves with the meta. And generally, yes, you're right, but losing the combat step to tribal decks was just a devastating blow overall.