[Article]Eternal Europe: Khan's Dangerous Cards

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I've been rather surprised by (most) of the community's reaction to Khans as a weak set - and this week's article is about the two main culprits for that state of affairs:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29337_The-Most-Dangerous-Cards-In-Khans-Of-Tarkir.html

Check it out and let me know what you think. Also, feel free to share your own impression and testing data. :)

[Ellomdian]

As with most things Magic related, it's easy to Monday-morning the reaction to cards like JTMS when it came out after we've all been playing with it for years. Legacy was a fundamentally different environment at the time, and I don't think it's fair (or terribly useful) to use examples like that for anything except to encourage people to give cards an actual look (instead of being immediately dismissive.)

Having said that, I think it's laughable how bad both of these cards are in an environment where mass Graveyard hate is not only encouraged, it's expected. They both have such high mana costs that if you don't get to Delve them, they are effectively unplayable. One of the benefits of Snapcaster is that it enables you to make small, incremental advantages without very much commitment (as opposed to Yawg-will like effects that require you to commit heavily to make your engine work.) Would I rather draw 3 cards than make my Mongoose better? In a vacuum, sure. But on Turn 5, when I've already been attacking my opponent, and I have been able to disrupt them because my clock came down on T1, I am probably going to be happy to have the little goose that could.

I am more than willing to admit it if I end up wrong, but as long as people are obliged to play RiP and Relic because Dredge and Reanimator (and other random Graveyard Value stuff like Loam) are a thing, the variance between pay-off and being dead in your hand seems too high.

[PirateKing]

Sultai Delver
Jeskai Delver
Shardless Sultai

Nope. Not even once. I appreciate that perhaps your affiliation with SCG and their goal of normalizing deck names to Wizard's flavor standards might censor your writings. But BUG and RUG are forever.

[rufus]

...
Having said that, I think it's laughable how bad both of these cards are in an environment where mass Graveyard hate is not only encouraged, it's expected. They both have such high mana costs that if you don't get to Delve them, they are effectively unplayable...

I think it's got brainstorm-syndrome where even answering it is a losing proposition a lot of the time. If an opponent drops a proactive graveyard counter like Rest in Peace, and you're holding a dead Treasure Cruise you end up a little bit ahead, since he spent more than you, and reactive graveyard hate like Tormod's Crypt are limited because delve is part of the cost.

[danyul]

Nope. Not even once. I appreciate that perhaps your affiliation with SCG and their goal of normalizing deck names to Wizard's flavor standards might censor your writings. But BUG and RUG are forever.

Jeskai = :w::r::u:

And by RUG, did you mean Temur :r::u::g:?

/daggers :cool::cool::cool:

Interesting article. I'm excited to see how Delver/cantrip lists adapt to these cards over the next few months.

[Ellomdian]

I think it's got brainstorm-syndrome where even answering it is a losing proposition a lot of the time. If an opponent drops a proactive graveyard counter like Rest in Peace, and you're holding a dead Treasure Cruise you end up a little bit ahead, since he spent more than you, and reactive graveyard hate like Tormod's Crypt are limited because delve is part of the cost.

It depends; if you can realize the value of a dead card in hand with something like a Brainstorm, then yes, you are probably slightly ahead. Then again, if stopping you from drawing cards means they are more likely to win, then the value of a card in hand is irrelevant.

I think there is also the assumption that there is a cost associated with playing the Hate cards - people run Spellbomb and Relic because they cantrip, and therefor have very low opportunity cost. As for Delve being part of the cost, if these cards became popular, I would expect to see more people pop the answers earlier - you don't have to eat 7-10 cards, you just need to eat the first 4-5 to slow the deck down enough.


Nope. Not even once. I appreciate that perhaps your affiliation with SCG and their goal of normalizing deck names to Wizard's flavor standards might censor your writings. But BUG and RUG are forever.

We had this exact conversation this weekend. Assuming MtG makes it another 5 years, it's terrifying to imagine the kids talking in this nonsense like we all use terms like Esper and Jund now :p

[Sisyphos]

Nope. Not even once. I appreciate that perhaps your affiliation with SCG and their goal of normalizing deck names to Wizard's flavor standards might censor your writings. But BUG and RUG are forever.

Would hold my horses on that one. Based on the fact that Carsten admitted to SCG editing stuff like article titles, I would not bet on the name usage being decided by Carsten without him claiming responsibility for it. Up until he does, I will be over here reading the article and wearing my beautiful tin-foil-hat.

[iamajellydonut]

As much as Treasure Cruise is going to be a one-of blow-out, you're severely overhyping the cards and it's not unreasonable for people to be apprehensive about their future. The cards unreliable, unwieldy, and in many cases they will not integrate easily with an existing deck. Will they be played? Absolutely. Particularly Treasure Find. But not at record breaking rates by any means.

[wcm8]

If these cards actually become a consistent 4-of strategy, we'll likely see more Rest in Peace, Leyline of The Void, Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbombs and such showing up. The first two can be run with a Helm of Obedience to justify running them against decks that don't use their GY, and the latter two at least cantrip at worst. Leyline and Spellbomb are one-sided, so could even be run in decks that choose to play the Delve cards.

Deathrite Shaman meanwhile will continue being the best creature.

I think Dig Through Time is the better card, merely for being instant speed and having superior selection.

To be honest I haven't done any testing with them yet, but I really don't think they are quite on the same level as Jace. Jace is removal, powerful draw engine, disruption, and win-condition all in one. A draw-3 is tough to come back from, but it doesn't spell certain defeat like an unchallenged Jace does.

[btm10]

Unfortunately, the Khans tribe names make the difficult to read. Sultai is the only one I recognize at this point, but having to look at the spoiler just to figure out what Jeskai was was irritating. I do blame SCG for this, though.

For now - I agree with the basic premise, if not the specific decks that these will be run in. I'm not sure about UR Delver - I've done some two fisted testing using with Burn, and it's perfectly happy so far to drop Lavamancer and Flame Rift while swapping 4 Moutains for 4 Volcs and running Treasure cruise. A reload button was something that Burn wanted, and it might've found it in Treasure Cruise. And if there was ever a deck that didn't care (or was even actively happy) that its opponent was going to board in Rest in Peace, it's Burn. I don't think that U/W is the right shell for Dig Through Time because Miracles has that angle solidly covered and Top + cantrips is probably better. I'm going to try it in BUG Control, and see what happens.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Sultai Delver
Jeskai Delver
Shardless Sultai

"Šudlaj, žeskaj, vykrůcaj,
len mi pecku nezrůcaj..."

Frankly, that's where I stopped any careful reading and just rushed through the rest of the article.

[Sloshthedark]

"Šudlaj, žeskaj, vykrůcaj,
len mi pecku nezrůcaj..."

that's where my monitor got dirty =D


I planned on halfway accepting RUG in next 2 years... clearly editor's world is too fast for me, I'll have to take a coding table, sextant and a time machine with me everytime I open an SCG article..

[iamajellydonut]

I planned on halfway accepting RUG in next 2 years... clearly editor's world is too fast for me, I'll have to take a coding table, sextant and a time machine with me everytime I open an SCG article..

I don't understand why we have to accept anything. It's not like anyone says "Dimir Griselbrand" or "Selesnya Toolbox".

[Zombie]

Those KTK wedge names. Stop it already, my brain hurts D:

[Griselpuff]

Classic MTG the Source. Carsten writes a fantastic, format changing article and people quibble over names.

@Carsten - After testing, I agree with you 100%. Imo though, these cards lead to more midrange/control strategies as Delver decks that draw Daze in the mid/late game have cards that don't matter. There is a balance though, because if people durdle and cantrip, decks like Storm get better.

Level 1 is people with Cruise tooling on people without. Then, once it's adopted, the meta will probably balance out somewhere.

[iamajellydonut]

Carsten writes a fantastic, format changing article

This is something to be debated. In the meantime, forced adoption of the clan names drastically changes the flavor and, by extension, fun of the game in an unpleasant way, and is therefore something that truly does need to be discussed and protested.

[Griselpuff]

Go make a separate thread about it then. I personally see no problem with the new names. They are kind of foreign/different, but just because they are new doesn't mean we should oppose them.

Also, Wizards isn't forcing anything. You can choose not to use the new names, just be aware a lot of other people will. And guess what, some of them might do it because they like it, not because they are "forced".

But yeah, I think for Carsten's sake we should shift all discussion of that to a separate thread.

[Dice_Box]

Ello summed up my thoughts on this in the first post. I do not see overcosted cards with late game use being anything more then limited in their effects on the format.

As for the names, learning then new ones is a Sultai(er). (Get it? Yep lame and I had to look it up.)

[Megadeus]

Alright here's my try at it, sultai = BUG. Jeskai = Raka? Temur=RUG. And I can't remember the other two... Am I a winner yet?

[TheYoungster]

I'd first like to state that it was another fantastic article Carsten, the kind that I have come to expect every week from you and you haven't disappointed yet. Anyway I only have limited experience playing with these cards so far but have played against them a good bit and they are very good. I think that a delver shell actually isn't the best place for them as even if you're drawing a bunch of cards it doesn't matter if it's the mid to late game as you're still drawing soft counters that may or may not be useless, though I do think BUG delver is a great shell as it tends to have a better lategame than its brethren depending on the build. Maybe UWR can take advantage of it but I think the best shell would probably be some sort of Deathblade deck, at least for the delverecall. I think the other is a lot more interesting, and the control deck you outlined in the article looked interesting, and seems like a great place to start, though I have no experience testing that one. I don't have any guesses as to how it will shake up the metagame but I do think that scavenging ooze becomes a lot better with the printing of these cards, and if the delverecall go's into midrange strategies, tarmogoyf will likely fight along side it, which makes ooze even better.

[Offler]

Just looking at Carsten's UR delver legacy. Actually not bad usage of Treasure cruise.

But the math for the card is simple. Remove 7 cards, pay U/Pay 7U to draw 3. I wouldnt play more than two of these, but that is just a matter of opinion.

[Lemnear]

Just looking at Carsten's UR delver legacy. Actually not bad usage of Treasure cruise.

But the math for the card is simple. Remove 7 cards, pay U/Pay 7U to draw 3. I wouldnt play more than two of these, but that is just a matter of opinion.

Tbh, it's a matter of math of getting 28 in your graveyard in total to fully profit from 4 Treasure Cruise. My gut feeling is that you want some Thought Scour or Mental Notes in there

[Hardcore]

What annoys me is that the black delver cards are crap in legacy.

[Dice_Box]

Delver or Delve?

[Lemnear]

What annoys me is that the black delver cards are crap in legacy.

So far at least. I have high hopes for the upcoming expansions with that mechanic. Bets on seeing the mechanic gravestorm in this block as well?

[Valtrix]

I really like dig through time over treasure cruise. The instant speed is highly relevant, but the most important thing is the card quality and selection. Sure, you can draw three cards with a treasure cruise, but between drawing another cruise you can't use or just drawing a land you don't need it doesn't seem that great. Dig Through Time on the other hand looks pretty insane to interact with itself. You get to see seven cards and pick two you need. This means if you can't support a second dig through time, you just don't pick it up from the seven you need. Or, if you can, then you can chain a dig through time to see 14 cards deep. That amount of searching is just insane, on top of the card advantage it gives you. I think this was a very overlooked application of dig through time in the article.

Dig through time also has more relevant applications in a combo/control deck, which I think is somewhere where it would find a much better place than a pure control deck. For example, putting together stage-depths or thopter sword. (Although I dislike thopter/sword because it's reliant on the yard like dig through time).

Snapcaster mage might also be very good with these cards but not overloading your deck with them, but being flexible enough to recast them when needed.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

This is something to be debated. In the meantime, forced adoption of the clan names drastically changes the flavor and, by extension, fun of the game in an unpleasant way, and is therefore something that truly does need to be discussed and protested.

This.

While Naya, Esper and Jund were adopted, these are not, they are forced and it's silly. Magic is silly. It's silly enough even without using the forced terms. I'm not going to act more silly than necessary.
Also, Jund, Naya, Bant, Esper, these marked some special decks. They carry/ied an information about decklist and game plan, while the same is/was done for the other decks by the color shortcut or wutnot.

Bant - UGW creatures with permission and StP
Naya - RGW Zoo
Esper - control in appropriate tricolor setting
Jund (pronounce "yoond" in our lgs, similarly how Mirodin is pronounced "mirahtor" or FutureSight is pronounced "feature siege"), so Jund - BRG creatures, discard and removal

Jeskai Delver brings no information. Sultai delver brings no infromation. RUG Delver does. Should we all start using senseless names just so that SCG may sell the products or w/e the reason is?

I'm willing to use these terms once they become established and linked to some decks, and if they become a communal aspect, but as long as its just mere word-games for the sake of word-games, gfys with the whole article, how ever brilliant it might be.

[Lemnear]

I think Dig Through Time should replace Enter the Infinity in OmniTell as it's never really dead. Guess it's awesome in any S&T deck

[PirateKing]

This.

Beyond lacking information, it's replacing a one syllable name with a two syllable name. Esper and Jund got picked up because the alternative was actually pronouncing the three colors. Now you had a one and two syllable word doing the same thing. Easier to use in conversation, gets picked up.

The other three clans might get used, but RUG and BUG are impossible to defeat in depth of information and ease of conversation.

[Cire]

Maybe it's just me - but I like the names. Sultai Delver in my ears sounds better than BUG delver. Idk why - it just sounds good. But then again I'm the crazy person that will call any 4 color deck after the Nephelim, so . . . .

[rufus]

Maybe it's just me - but I like the names. Sultai Delver in my ears sounds better than BUG delver. Idk why - it just sounds good. But then again I'm the crazy person that will call any 4 color deck after the Nephelim, so . . . .

You going to say "Abzan" three times fast and tell me it's better than "Necra"?

[Ellomdian]

I think Dig Through Time should replace Enter the Infinity in OmniTell as it's never really dead. Guess it's awesome in any S&T deck

... that can afford to wait until it has 5+ cards in the GY until it goes off.

I think people are seriously underestimating how hard it is to 'accidentally' get delve fodder in the GY early. Fetch, Discard to Thoughtseize, Ponder, Brainstorm, Spell Pierce - typically at that point I want to be killing them, not digging. If you want a Tutor, run Intuition...

Know what Treasure Cruise is? It's AK, at Sorcery speed - an Engine-esque card that just draws more cards. Don't get me wrong, I would love to live in a world (for a while) where AK was the Bee's Knees in Legacy, but it requires too much setup, and the decks that benefit most from it aren't very strong currently.

[Lemnear]

... that can afford to wait until it has 5+ cards in the GY until it goes off.

I think people are seriously underestimating how hard it is to 'accidentally' get delve fodder in the GY early. Fetch, Discard to Thoughtseize, Ponder, Brainstorm, Spell Pierce - typically at that point I want to be killing them, not digging. If you want a Tutor, run Intuition...

Know what Treasure Cruise is? It's AK, at Sorcery speed - an Engine-esque card that just draws more cards. Don't get me wrong, I would love to live in a world (for a while) where AK was the Bee's Knees in Legacy, but it requires too much setup, and the decks that benefit most from it aren't very strong currently.

Well, Treasure Cruise it at least a card that makes people ponder to break the decade-old shell of tempo-decks and together with Dig Through Time, it's the first time blue control can take advantage of it's own graveyard since the printing of Snapcaster Mage. What I like most about those cards is that they interact poorly in current UW control shells like Miracles and potentially create attempts to move away from SDT + Terminus in favor of the blue Delve cards and Supreme Verdict.

What more can we ask for Legacy?

[dune2k]

I think Dig Through Time should replace Enter the Infinity in OmniTell as it's never really dead. Guess it's awesome in any S&T deck

Are you kidding or did you name the wrong card?
Everything else does not make sense.

[TsumiBand]

I'm not sure why people are so attached to the Apocalypse names that they weren't using before Khans of Tarkir threatened to rechristen the wedges.

Junk was always BGW Good Stuff, right? It was never 'Necra'. Very few if any players would have processed 'Necra Midrange' as quickly as 'Junk Midrange'. Dega has never even been a thing, save like, a fairly recent deck in Modern, and it's just called 'RWB Burn' or '3-color Burn' but almost never was the phrase 'Dega' attached to the deck in a mainstream way. At least maybe not until KoT popped up and made everyone Google the original wedge nicknames so they could be like "why not Ceta, I always called it Ceta, i'm fucken OG"

So many names are just based in tradition anyway, that their relative informative status depends on a lot of context. Any deck with "Thresh" in the name is likely to have almost no actual cards with Threshold, save maaaaybe ye olde Nimbly-Bimbly Mongoose. Affinity doesn't have to play a single card with Affinity on it - honestly there are probably more cards with Metalcraft in the deck than Affinity, yet we call it Affinity because the deck 'evolved' or whatever. Which is sort of the old riddle about the boat with all its boards replaced over years and years; at some point every board is replaced due to wear and tear, but at what point did it stop being the original boat and become a new boat?

I've done this rant before but inasmuch as naming conventions are concerned I'm usually fine with "{word/acronym for colors in deck} {central card/mechanic defining the deck's functional premise} {clarifying word for deck's overall strategy (aggro/control/combo/midrange/prison/turbofog/santa/pillowfort/asl/tight sight/benzo)}" and I find pet names less than helpful, but then when you brew something you kind of want to release it into the wild and hear people talk about it, so I guess I get it. I mean if you see a random deck and you lose to it, think about how you tell the story to your friends -- "Ohhhh it was this, like.... Blue-Black-Green midrange control garbage, with like Moroii and shit" "dude how did you lose to that" "whatever man he was using like Quicken to cast Mutilate EOT so he got to keep his Inkwell Leviathan, totally blew me out, so fucking random". That's practically the name of the deck already; the colors, the deck's MO, some of the weird cards in the deck.

[Lemnear]

Are you kidding or did you name the wrong card?
Everything else does not make sense.

Well, instead of running Enter the Infinite as a clunky 12 mana spell and as a playset, uncastable unless you have Omniscience out, it should be fair to ponder over DTT as a hardcastable super-Impulse to find your combo enabler (or kill-condition once Omniscience is in play).

[btm10]

... that can afford to wait until it has 5+ cards in the GY until it goes off.

I think people are seriously underestimating how hard it is to 'accidentally' get delve fodder in the GY early. Fetch, Discard to Thoughtseize, Ponder, Brainstorm, Spell Pierce - typically at that point I want to be killing them, not digging. If you want a Tutor, run Intuition...

Know what Treasure Cruise is? It's AK, at Sorcery speed - an Engine-esque card that just draws more cards. Don't get me wrong, I would love to live in a world (for a while) where AK was the Bee's Knees in Legacy, but it requires too much setup, and the decks that benefit most from it aren't very strong currently.

I think that Dig Through Time will see play in either a non-Miracles U/W or UWx shell (I remain unsure as to how good DTT-U/W will be relative to Miracles; the ability to seamlessly integrate CounterTop seems to give Miracles a big upper hand) or in BUG Control (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=65897). Treasure Cruise is going to be a solid 2-of in U/R Delver or some other Counter-Burn deck that just cares about raw card advantage because its pieces are (broadly) interchangeable. The cards don't need to be good (or even castable) on turn 1 or 2 to be good by themselves, especially if they have synergy with the rest of the deck - as both Dig and Treasure Cruise do with decks composed almost entirely of instants, sorceries, and fetchlands.

[lordofthepit]

RUG, BUG, and Junk just roll off the tongue much better than the alternatives. I can see myself eventually learning the wedge names for Patriot and Italia though, but that remains to be seen.

And of course, excellent article, Carsten. I'm a bit skeptical that these cards will see widespread play, especially at the level you predict, but when you have a different opinion than I do, it's always enough to make me re-evaluate my own.

[iamajellydonut]

Italia

To be fair, this actually is widely known as "Dega". The trouble is that it's a shitty color mix and therefore not played enough actually care about.

[TheArchitect]

To be fair, this actually is widely known as "Dega". The trouble is that it's a shitty color mix and therefore not played enough actually care about.

I have never actually heard anyone refer to the color combinations as Dega in real life (or any of the other Apoc names for that matter). I am pretty sure using the Apoc names is just something people started to say on the internet in an attempt to establish hipster cred.

[iamajellydonut]

I have never actually heard anyone refer to the color combinations as Dega in real life.

Largely because nobody talks about those color combinations in real life.

[TsumiBand]

I have never actually heard anyone refer to the color combinations as Dega in real life (or any of the other Apoc names for that matter). I am pretty sure using the Apoc names is just something people started to say on the internet in an attempt to establish hipster cred.

http://s.quickmeme.com/img/6b/6bc8657bdb85f7112456dc29e3266a2125f4fd5c6bf5fc8bc8411996a7c2f8ce.jpg

[iamajellydonut]

inb4 I play Raka Rabble.

[alastair]

Excellent article as always. Both seam strong, SnT and some form of Ctrl and Delver will benifit as you suggest. Maybe Dig might even convince me to sleeve up Resets again. Very interested to see how you develop the ideas you have started.

Names....... those names are terrible force fed garbage for kids from WoTC, that said it's no worse than SCG's inssecent labelling of Team America as BUG Delver. Legacy has a long and interesting history, take the time to learn / read about it as opposed to this spoon fed crap.

[Hof]

I have no idea what "Sultai" means.

Other than that, excellent article on an interesting subject. I hope you are right that the blue Delve cards can set some new things in motion for Legacy. As anyone who has ever played with Tombstalker knows, getting 6 cards in the graveyard for Delve isn't particularly hard in Legacy. It is Tombstalker #2 that can be problematic, and for this reason Tombstalker is often played as a 2-of, more rarely as a 3-of. Since the new blue Delve cards actually draws more cards, and thus makes getting more cards in the graveyard easier, as you pointed out in the article, it sounds reasonable that some decks could run up to 4 of these things and get away with it.

[ESG]

Yeah, I found the names egregious. For a Standard article, such labeling might make sense, but retroactively renaming a bunch of Legacy decks is ridiculous. I suspect it was not Carsten who chose those names. I do think Carsten should protest the names and point to the overwhelming opinion expressed in this thread as backup. SCG can and does revise naming conventions based on feedback and common usage.

Carsten, thanks for the analysis. We'll know soon enough where these cards lie on the spectrum of good to too good.

[Nation Prophetic]

Oh man... If this article is right about those two cards being big in legacy I'm gonna be awful happy with my surgical extraction/extripate/snapcaster deck in the brave new meta these things create :laugh:

[HSCK]

This is ridiculous, two cards with a ton of potential after many of the same users complained the set was awful are presented here. Instead of that, complaining that WotC has names for color combinations is the focus of discussion.

[iamajellydonut]

Instead of that, complaining that WotC has names for color combinations is the focus of discussion.

A) These cards have yet to be demonstrated as amazing and each has glaring flaws and thus we don't care.

B) The names really are terrible.

[btm10]

A) These cards have yet to be demonstrated as amazing and each has glaring flaws and thus we don't care.

B) The names really are terrible.

A) The question is more 'are they good enough' than 'are they too good' at this point. And this is the topic. Carsten has argued that both cards are quite powerful, which is something we can debate. So far, I hold with him, because not many people have a problem casting the first Tombstalker and the effects are objectively quite powerful.

B) Of course the wedge names, especially for RUG and BUG, suck but there's already a thread (two threads, really) for bitching about them.

[Lord Seth]

I have never actually heard anyone refer to the color combinations as Dega in real life (or any of the other Apoc names for that matter). I am pretty sure using the Apoc names is just something people started to say on the internet in an attempt to establish hipster cred.I've heard people say Dega, albeit rarely.

People using Dega didn't start because of hipster creed, because no one uses the other Apocalypse names. People used Dega because there was nothing else to really call it. UWR can be called American (or Patriot), RUG and BUG have... RUG and BUG, and WBG has Junk. No name had ever really been made for WBR, possibly due to general lack of interest in that color combination, so people took the closest thing to an "official" term for it, Dega. No one bothered with Raka or Necra because there were already terms established for them.


This is ridiculous, two cards with a ton of potential after many of the same users complained the set was awful are presented here. Instead of that, complaining that WotC has names for color combinations is the focus of discussion.My problem isn't that Wizards made names. My problem is the article, for no real reason, using those names instead of the far, far more familiar ones that readers would be accustomed to.

[from Cairo]

It's dumb that everyone is in here complaining about the name of the archetypes rather than the actual discussion points of the article. One can figure out what archetype he's talking about from the context clues alone, if it's really a struggle pull up a spoiler/preorder page and check out the charms. Really, who gives a shit what you call the deck, we know what 65/75ths of the list he's talking about is.

Are Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise the real deal or are they going to prove to be garbage? This was the actual interesting part of Carsten's article. It sounds like he's done some limited testing with them and has drawn some conclusions about the shells that work, etc. The Delve cards, the Murder variant and maybe the Hooting Mandrills card seem like the only ones that could make any real splash in Legacy. This is more than could be said for anything out of Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze, Theros (Swan Song?) or Journey to Nyx. M14 and Born of the Gods I guess gave Young Pyromancer, and Spirit of the Labyrinth.

IDK just seems pathetic to get wrapped up in whether one calls BUG - BUG, Ana or Sultai, I can't see caring.

[Lord Seth]

Are Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise the real deal or are they going to prove to be garbage? This was the actual interesting part of Carsten's article. It sounds like he's done some limited testing with them and has drawn some conclusions about the shells that work, etc. The Delve cards, the Murder variant and maybe the Hooting Mandrills card seem like the only ones that could make any real splash in Legacy. This is more than could be said for anything out of Gatecrash, Dragon's Maze, Theros (Swan Song?) or Journey to Nyx. M14 and Born of the Gods I guess gave Young Pyromancer, and Spirit of the Labyrinth.Eidolon of the Great Revel (Journey into Nyx) had a bigger impact on Legacy than Spirit of the Labyrinth did.

[from Cairo]

Eidolon of the Great Revel (Journey into Nyx) had a bigger impact on Legacy than Spirit of the Labyrinth did.

Fair. Still we've seen ~4 playables since RTR and people are concerned with the name each deck is wearing.

[alderon666]

I think Dig Through Time should replace Enter the Infinity in OmniTell as it's never really dead. Guess it's awesome in any S&T deck

Add Gitaxian Probe, Intuition and maybe Merchant Scroll for max business spell. You'll have a fizzle rate after going SnT -> Omniscience -> Dig Through Time into lands and counterspells, but the ability to cast Dig Through Time for value seems major.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

I call Dega German (bad history joke), Italian (based off of Team Italia), or Oros (Planar Chaos Dega Dragon).
Ana is either BUG or American (based off of Team America)
Ceta is RUG or Canadian (based off of Canadian Thresh)
Necra is Junk. Enough said.
Raka is Patriot (which, ironically, makes little sense outside of the States).

None of the new names even stick. At least the Alara shards (as well as the Ravnica guilds) stuck. Might be because of a lack of flavor for players to identify with (not necessarily play with).

[dte]

Raka is Patriot (which, ironically, makes little sense outside of the States).


I guess that at least in UK, Russia, France, Australia, Czech Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway or Panama it should make as much sense as in USA?

I didn't put some countries that I'm not sure if they play magic.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

I guess that at least in UK, Russia, France, Australia, Czech Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway or Panama it should make as much sense as in USA?

I didn't put some countries that I'm not sure if they play magic.

Hmm ... true ... guess Im used to patriotism as a primarily American concept as opposed to a universal concept.

[UnsungHero]

I doubt these will new names will stick, but i'm sure there will be people who use these names just to piss the grey beards off.
Thing about the Alara block names is the names were actual places and most of the archetype associated with each matched flavor wise with the deck, where as the Khans block is just names of clans.
The Ravnica guilds are essentially names of groups too, and you don't hear people saying Izzet Delver or Boros Painter.

And besides even flavor wise its not like the Temur Clan would have a bunch of Wizards that turn into Insects and who might also have a pet mongoose.
Nobody is going to call RUG Delver (Or Canadian Thresh) Temur Delver. Because the Temur wouldn't hang out with 3/2's that cost 1 U.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

I doubt these will new names will stick, but i'm sure there will be people who use these names just to piss the grey beards off.
Thing about the Alara block names is the names were actual places and most of the archetype associated with each matched flavor wise with the deck, where as the Khans block is just names of clans.
The Ravnica guilds are essentially names of groups too, and you don't hear people saying Izzet Delver or Boros Painter.

And besides even flavor wise its not like the Temur Clan would have a bunch of Wizards that turn into Insects and who might also have a pet mongoose.
Nobody is going to call RUG Delver (Or Canadian Thresh) Temur Delver. Because the Temur wouldn't hang out with 3/2's that cost 1 U.

Maybe not in Legacy, but there has been at least one occasion when Ive heard the term Boros Deck Wins. Other guilds dont pop out in terms of play, but I definitely identify with the Izzet Guild's flavor.

Anyhow, regarding cards to look out for, I wanna see something that uses Howl of the Horde effectively if that is possible.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I have never actually heard anyone refer to the color combinations as Dega in real life (or any of the other Apoc names for that matter). I am pretty sure using the Apoc names is just something people started to say on the internet in an attempt to establish hipster cred.

+1 on never hearing that; and all that it takes to be sure on the bolded part is to check which users use that.



It's dumb that everyone is in here complaining about the name of the archetypes rather than the actual discussion points of the article. One can figure out what archetype he's talking about from the context clues alone...
I'm not going to figure anything. There are used names and shortcuts, I don't know why should I dick around a 256-cards spoiler to know what the article about Dega Through Time and Treaseru cruiser brings on the RUG Dlver. No way. I wouldn't start naming the established Legacy decks after random crap rare creatures that stink in my binder, coz you know, it's pretty ignorant towards the reader. One should do everything possible for the readers' convenience, and here we got an example of how it wasn't done because reasons. Yeah, it's not that bad as reading That Czech MtG Server where half of the people cannot write correctly so their sentecnes don't make any sense at all, but I still find it annoying and I'm not going to play by this rules. If it's "either subdue to our quirk or don't continue reading", then I got no trouble to click that little cross in the upper right.

Ib4 Fungal Shambler Delver. Go figure.


edit:

IDK just seems pathetic to get wrapped up in whether one calls BUG - BUG, Ana or Sultai, I can't see caring.
Perfect. Then lets don't care and call the thing BUG.

[menace13]

widely known as "Dega".
And wildly loved!

[lyracian]

None of the new names even stick. At least the Alara shards (as well as the Ravnica guilds) stuck. Might be because of a lack of flavor for players to identify with (not necessarily play with).
Dega/Italia/Mardu is just not a colour combination used much in Legacy. I think the real question though on names is who is pushing there usage? Is it Wizards who are trying to push the name for the Wedges or is is sites (like SCG, Hipsters) that are making the choice to use them for Wedge decks in there articles?

Shards names got picked up not only because they were easy to pronounce but the cards were also being used in Legacy (Hierarch, Knight, Nacatl, Pridemage) as well as standard. Ravnica guild names have been used a bit but a lot of decks tend to be known by a key card or mechanic such as Loam or Dredge vs Golgari deck. There has been various UW Control decks Miracles is just the latest iteration of Counter-Top. Current standard has Rabble Red after the new Goblin. Come next year we will have another set and new names for decks and I expect most of these Khan names will fade into the background.

[Barook]

I think the new Delve cards need to see playtesting first to realize how good they really are.

I think what people are missing is that you aren't forced to delve for maximum cost reduction. An Ancestral Recall for :1::u: is still might fine, for example. Besides, useless copies can be shuffled away thanks to Brainstorm shenanigans. And, unlike Tombstalker, the old copy feeds another copy with -:1: for the next Delve while mana is further developing, making them easier and easier to cast. Blue midrange and control decks probably benefit the most from it.

If those cards are as ridiculous as Carsten suggests, I wonder how much we're getting pushed into blue this time. Remember, we're at ~69% Brainstorm deck penetration right now. ~73% was the high of the Mental Misstep era. We aren't that far off from surpassing it.

[joretapo]

I agree with Carsten.

Ancestral recall is just powerful even as a one of so treasure cruise also is.

Dig trough time is double ponder at instant speed it is the big brother of the cantrip cartel. Instant speed makes it even cheaper than ponder in reactive decks (mainly control) Casting it at end of turn, you not only spend the mana open already for reaction (UU/W) but you also strategicaly only delve what is needed, leaving your graveyard filled as much as possible for the next Dig through time.

To me the question is which decks ? and how many? And i suspect that count, for dig through time at least, might not be that low.

i do not see dig through time living very long in modern :)

[Quizzlemanizzle]

Those cards can't be 4ofs in a deck unless it is built around them.

I think DTT is stronger than TC. Digging for FoW+Blue at instant speed for 2 Blue mana is pretty big. TC being sorcery is a bummer.

But since Delve cards eat up your Delve ressources I don't think even decks like UR-PyroDelver can support more than 2, 3 at the most and you might have to cut your Grim Lavamancers down.

What I would love to see is Legacy-Madness with these cards.

Come on Basking Rootwalla, Wild Mongrel, Arrogant Wurm. :)

Delver synergizes with Madness unless you play a lot of the Flashback stuff along with Madness. Maybe Treasure Cruise can be an egine for a Madness deck.

[HSCK]

I think the new Delve cards need to see playtesting first to realize how good they really are.

I think what people are missing is that you aren't forced to delve for maximum cost reduction. An Ancestral Recall for :1::u: is still might fine, for example. Besides, useless copies can be shuffled away thanks to Brainstorm shenanigans. And, unlike Tombstalker, the old copy feeds another copy with -:1: for the next Delve while mana is further developing, making them easier and easier to cast. Blue midrange and control decks probably benefit the most from it.

If those cards are as ridiculous as Carsten suggests, I wonder how much we're getting pushed into blue this time. Remember, we're at ~69% Brainstorm deck penetration right now. ~73% was the high of the Mental Misstep era. We aren't that far off from surpassing it.

I haven't a clue how you've reached the conclusion that we're at 69% Brainstorm meta when all the top tier decks together only have around 51% of the meta, including Elves, Jund, and Death and Taxes. Is this data for every single entrant or something from some event?

at 1-2 Mana draw three can just be backbreaking. Maybe too backbreaking in the long run.

[Matsaya]

http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE
Most played card : brainstorm = 66%

[HSCK]

http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE
Most played card : brainstorm = 66%

Oh yes, that data, the one that counts tournaments of all sizes, that makes sense.

[Barook]

Oh yes, that data, the one that counts tournaments of all sizes, that makes sense.
I was talking about placing decks in Top 8s, not the general meta. Brainstorm deck placing better on average is a different topic.

The main problem is these data are "polluted" with MTGO tournament results where nonblue decks can place easier due only being required to play 4 rounds. Consistency is less of an issue there compared to tournaments with more rounds.

Paper is much closer to ~69% in terms of Top 8 decks.

[Ellomdian]

Oh yes, that data, the one that counts tournaments of all sizes, that makes sense.

I love any statistical conclusion that lumps Infect in with Miracles, Shardless BUG, and Tide just because they all run Brainstorm. Or one that says we have an unhealthy format that stifles innovation. I guess you could try to say that if you knowingly don't play Brainstorm, you are handicapping yourself. That it's edging out other strategies that would be viable if Brainstorm didn't exist. That's why Elves and Burn don't see a lot of recent success.

What's that you say? I just listed the T8 of last week's SCG Open? Crap...

There's a part of me that would like to see Brainstorm banned for 3 months at this point because Elves will effectively annihilate the format, just to see the reactions from the people who have an unnatural dislike of the card.

<AHEM> Back to the Cards we were actually discussing...

[HSCK]

I was talking about placing decks in Top 8s, not the general meta. Brainstorm deck placing better on average is a different topic.

The main problem is these data are "polluted" with MTGO tournament results where nonblue decks can place easier due only being required to play 4 rounds. Consistency is less of an issue there compared to tournaments with more rounds.

Paper is much closer to ~69% in terms of Top 8 decks.

No it's not, I just posted an update showing that to to be far from true.

[force_of_phil]

I think the new Delve cards need to see playtesting first to realize how good they really are.

I think what people are missing is that you aren't forced to delve for maximum cost reduction. An Ancestral Recall for :1::u: is still might fine, for example. Besides, useless copies can be shuffled away thanks to Brainstorm shenanigans. And, unlike Tombstalker, the old copy feeds another copy with -:1: for the next Delve while mana is further developing, making them easier and easier to cast. Blue midrange and control decks probably benefit the most from it.

The question for me is whether decks want to be doing this as their payoff. Drawing cards is great, but since you're casting a bunch of cantrips to set these up, you've already seen a lot of cards. There's only so much time/mana to spend playing with one's library. As Carsten noted, running all those cantrips plus 4 cruise makes for a very "airy" deck. For now, I see these cards playing a similar role to Sylvan Library, particularly in non-green decks. One in the main, and maybe another in the side as a boost in grindy matches. Maybe they will be fluid enough to break this mold, but that's where I would start.

[Finn]

Carsten being the one who performed the tests and the rest of us voicing opinions about it makes very little sense. If your input is something like "I tested this too and...", by all means let us hear your opinions. If you are coming from a place that starts with an uninformed opinion, your words are barely north of totally useless.

So...I tested this and I came to a similar conclusion as Carsten with some important caveats. Some of my notes.

-I only tested Treasure Cruise, four of them.
-I used a stock RUG list with the Treasure Cruises in the flex slots. It left me with no versatility, so this is likely to not be a final version for anyone.
-I found the first to be very castable. I found the second to be difficult to cast if I had two in the early turns, and I frequently wanted to shuffle one away.
-I found that getting the second one mid to late game was a very powerful effect.
-I felt that the deck was more powerful by a palpable amount in games when I resolved two of them.
-I felt that the deck was about the same power level when I cleared my graveyard to cast this card and drew another one in the three. After thinking about it, I figure that 2 cards for U is still a good deal, especially since you can pitch the "dead" copy to FoW.
-I faced Elves, DnT, mirror, Miracles.
-The card was best against other blue decks due to the Tarmos. (I quickly took the Mongeese out.) ...but...
-It hurts quite a bit when it gets countered. I am guessing that this card's presence in a deck is going to fundamentally change the way we play against that deck when we have counterspells available. When it resolves it is huge win. When it gets countered, it feels like an equally as huge loss. So, in reference to the above point, I think that, despite Carsten's results showing that it can be seamlessly be added to existing archetypes (this is perfectly awful news, btw), the card will be better in the ones that don't get double screwed by losing their graveyard while not getting the cards. I'm thinking the Blue White Red decks with Mystics. But somebody please clean up that greedy mana base.
-RiP was effective hate.

EDIT: I meant to mention somewhere that the delve cost of 7 does not really act like 7 after the first one. You draw some cards and then promptly fetch a land and cast a cantrip. It is just a few turns before you are back in business.

[TsumiBand]

I'm glad people are actually testing this instead of jawflapping it away as a crap common.

By the way, if WotC had any idea how potent the card was for old formats -- LOL at printing it at common, for so many reasons.

The fact that it is still a great draw spell at :2::u: is not surprising, though it does make me wonder why it is being treated as such a hard ask in Vintage. Perhaps because Mana Drain is a real thing. Meh? Time to board in Plasm Capture and crush fase?

In seriousness, I dunno about introducing a playable Blue draw 3, especially when realizing that as a Delve card, it could just have easily been Black instead of slipping into the color that just happens to have excellent draw already. Still, a cheap (in cost and cost) draw 3 has appeal and I look forward to throwing it into my jank train wrecks of budget decks.

[Meekrab]

The fact that it is still a great draw spell at :2::u: is not surprising, though it does make me wonder why it is being treated as such a hard ask in Vintage.
Things that cost the same amount of mana in vintage:

- Replaying my entire graveyard and oh yeah, you die.
- Putting an 11/11 Indestructible Infect Trample into play and oh yeah, you die.
- Reshuffling our decks and/or just discarding our hands and drawing 7 cards and oh yeah, you die.

In Vintage "draw three cards" is "worth" somewhere around ~.5U.

[TsumiBand]

Things that cost the same amount of mana in vintage:

- Replaying my entire graveyard and oh yeah, you die.
- Putting an 11/11 Indestructible Infect Trample into play and oh yeah, you die.
- Reshuffling our decks and/or just discarding our hands and drawing 7 cards and oh yeah, you die.

In Vintage "draw three cards" is "worth" somewhere around ~.5U.

Oh fer chrissake, like I never heard of Tinker before :P :P

They also play JTMS in Vintage - the fuck that's all about, it isn't even a good Oath of Druids target. NOTHING MAKES SENSE

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

The UR deck seems pretty sweet actually, not gonna lie

That said, this article makes me want to shove this into food chain, because what's better than drawing three cards, randomly drawing 4 cause your opponent bolted your Misthollow griffin

[ivanpei]

Delve recall will see play for sure. As someone who picked up foil JTMS immediately during worldwake, I'm generally an open minded early adopter.

However it won't see play on every blue deck. It's most effective as a 2-3 off in certain decks that don't have a use for the yard and can dump cards into the yard rather quickly.

Uwr delver is one and I will be testing them in Grim Lavamancer's spot. It's good, cheap mid game gas for the deck and the delve doesn't affect Uwr much.
It's not very good in miracles because miracles already has a lot of late game gas and alot of dead early game cards like entreat.
Combo cannot benefit from these cards in the md. This is because these probably come online turns 5-6 which is when you want to be comboing and not durdling around.

The best idea I've read is the Burn argument. Burn dumps a crap load of cards into the yard very fast. There are already blue burn lists floating around so it's very easy to chuck a few delve recalls in there. I'd honestly play 4 Delve recalls with 4 brainstorms and 3 Fireblasts.

[Lemnear]

I'm glad people are actually testing this instead of jawflapping it away as a crap common.

By the way, if WotC had any idea how potent the card was for old formats -- LOL at printing it at common, for so many reasons.

The fact that it is still a great draw spell at :2::u: is not surprising, though it does make me wonder why it is being treated as such a hard ask in Vintage. Perhaps because Mana Drain is a real thing. Meh? Time to board in Plasm Capture and crush fase?

In seriousness, I dunno about introducing a playable Blue draw 3, especially when realizing that as a Delve card, it could just have easily been Black instead of slipping into the color that just happens to have excellent draw already. Still, a cheap (in cost and cost) draw 3 has appeal and I look forward to throwing it into my jank train wrecks of budget decks.

Just imagine the price if it was a rare or Mythic and proofes itself a Legacy playable. I'm glad it's just a common for everyone to pick up and try. Vintage has the Problem of being pretty fast and permanent-based in regards of mana (VaCrySoLoMoxen) and most potent cantrips being restricted. In Legacy, you can fill your graveyard fast with Fetchlands and cantrips to fire off the first Treasure Cruise quickly unlike in Vintage, where it is either too slow to matter and/or your graveyard too empty. Dark Confidant is a Vintage staple for carddrawing just because of that.

I agree with the Sentiment that it's iffy that blue got 2 insane Delve drawspells in a single set while black got only junk once more. The 6 mana destory target creature is a joke compared to the 8 mana Ancestral Recall.

P.S. Hey WotC, what about a Delve Tutor or Ritual?

P.P.S. Tested Treasure Cruise in the Wishboard of TES. It's naughty every time you have to go for attrition wars against discard and counter. Castable turn 3 - 4 to fuel Tutor chains

[Meekrab]

Oh fer chrissake, like I never heard of Tinker before :P :P

They also play JTMS in Vintage - the fuck that's all about, it isn't even a good Oath of Druids target. NOTHING MAKES SENSE
It's not that its "a hard ask" to get three mana for a spell in vintage, obviously. It's just that the effect you get from Treasure Cruise isn't worth spending three mana in that format because of the opportunity cost. Hell, you can draw two cards AND get an extra mana _for free_ in Vintage.

To use a Legacy metaphor, there are plenty of decks that are happy to cast a four mana spell, but nobody plays Ernham Djinn.

[Lemnear]

To use a Legacy metaphor, there are plenty of decks that are happy to cast a four mana spell, but nobody plays Ernham Djinn.

To pick up that metaphor: no one invests 4 mana for a spell to see it removed for one mana. If you invest 1 mana to draw 3 cards it's hard to make up for the actual impact or to prevent it without a bad Investment made in mana and/or cards from the other side of the table.

[Ellomdian]

P.P.S. Tested Treasure Cruise in the Wishboard of TES. It's naughty every time you have to go for attrition wars against discard and counter. Castable turn 3 - 4 to fuel Tutor chains

^Finally, a reasonable use for the card.

[bruizar]

I agree with the Sentiment that it's iffy that blue got 2 insane Delve drawspells in a single set while black got only junk once more. The 6 mana destory target creature is a joke compared to the 8 mana Ancestral Recall.

P.S. Hey WotC, what about a Delve Tutor or Ritual?

P.P.S. Tested Treasure Cruise in the Wishboard of TES. It's naughty every time you have to go for attrition wars against discard and counter. Castable turn 3 - 4 to fuel Tutor chains

As expected. However, I think Empty the Pits is promising even though it looks bad at first sight.

[iamajellydonut]

If your input is something like "I tested this too and...", by all means let us hear your opinions. If you are coming from a place that starts with an uninformed opinion, your words are barely north of totally useless.

So, what you're saying is that grinding on the Cock.de against randoms for a few hours counts as hardcore testing, but our common sense is completely garbage? Cool.

Anyway, I did grind on the Cock.de, and I'm here to say it's good as nothing more than a one-or-two-of. My buddy sleeved up Miracles, Stoneblade, RUG, and RU, and I have to say it reminds me a lot of the old Raindance builds. Only instead of reliably digging for a Blastoise on turn two, you're getting a maybe-flipped Delver and a whole lot of fluff.

[Lemnear]

As expected. However, I think Empty the Pits is promising even though it looks bad at first sight.

The problem is all the black mana you cannot reduce on top of being totally useless in combat as those Token come into play tapped. The closest comparison i guess is Entreat and even casted from your hand, EtA offers a much better effect for the mana payed. Being an instant and able to remove two cards to pay for a tapped Zombie blows compared to 4/4 flying Angels, even if we ignore that the Miracles costs are worlds better.

[Finn]

So, what you're saying is that grinding on the Cock.de against randoms for a few hours counts as hardcore testing, but our common sense is completely garbage? Cool.To paraphrase Zilla,

"My opinion is more valuable than actual results because __________."
If you can fill in that blank with a defensible argument, we will be sure to take it into consideration.



I did not say hardcore testing. I did not say that I used Cockatrice. You are either attempting to put words in my mouth or mischaracterize my tests. In fact I did neither of these.

[Richard Cheese]

The problem is all the black mana you cannot reduce on top of being totally useless in combat as those Token come into play tapped. The closest comparison i guess is Entreat and even casted from your hand, EtA offers a much better effect for the mana payed. Being an instant and able to remove two cards to pay for a tapped Zombie blows compared to 4/4 flying Angels, even if we ignore that the Miracles costs are worlds better.

I think it compares more to EtW, but is basically worse almost all the time. Being instant and Delve are pretty interesting though. I know I'm going to pick up a playset, but that's because I have a fetish for goofy combos and transformational sideboards.

[Lemnear]

I think it compares more to EtW, but is basically worse almost all the time. Being instant and Delve are pretty interesting though. I know I'm going to pick up a playset, but that's because I have a fetish for goofy combos and transformational sideboards.

I feel the exact opposite and see it as a black Entreat. EtW is a card for quick ambushs fueled by an aggressive strategy with cards in hand; Empty the pits however feasts on your filled graveyard late in the game to create an suprising eot alpha Strike for BBBB.

At this point this thread and the Spoiler thread overlap and I think we should use this thread soley for discussing the articles content and not for cards from Khans. :)

[TsumiBand]

To paraphrase Zilla,

"My opinion is more valuable than actual results because __________."
If you can fill in that blank with a defensible argument, we will be sure to take it into consideration.



I did not say hardcore testing. I did not say that I used Cockatrice. You are either attempting to put words in my mouth or mischaracterize my tests. In fact I did neither of these.

Yes, I had difficulty figuring out where the accusation of method was coming from as well.

Evidence will always hold more weight than 'common sense'. If memory serves, a lot of pro players around the time of Onslaught took a look at Astral_Slide.dec and declared it a pile, yet it spent the majority of that Standard season as a defining control deck. Bidding decks were a joke until they weren't; Zombies, Beasts, Goblins, they all took a turn with the card. Cards are pretty regularly undervalued; Goyf and JtMS come to mind, but barring those insanely potent cards, virtually every Equipment card that we've come to depend on in Legacy for years always took time to breach the gap. People bitched about every Sword of P and Q, Batterskull was hotly contested as an auto-in for any deck with SFM, I think even Jitte was scoffed at for a while because it was an equipment and common sense was informing people that equipment was still bad. Stoneforge Mystic changed the narrative a lot in this regard, but then again, Batterskull was post-SFM's acceptance date, so go figure.

Pardon my tangent, but accepting common sense over evidence is driving a ton of bad reasoning in this 'age of information' we find ourselves in. Evaluating Magic cards is not even a blip on that radar, but for my part I don't know how a person could possibly value the data of someone who eyeballs a card over someone who actually sleeved it up and tried it out. (Inb4 some strawman argument about the shittiest Black commons for the last 15 years don't need to be tested; I'm not talking about the obligatory 4/1 for :5::b: that somehow brought balance to the Force for a decade. And you know what? If you can win with that guy, and put up real data with a real decklist, people will run that 4/1 for 6. Magic players don't mind being proven wrong by results; if we did, the game would still look like it did 15 years ago. Maindeck that Lava Tubes!)

[Ace/Homebrew]

Pardon my tangent, but accepting common sense over evidence is driving a ton of bad reasoning in this 'age of information' we find ourselves in.

Why don't we agree to teach the controversy and let everyone decide their own truth? :tongue:
Too much evidence can make someone feel icky if it doesn't align with their gut feelings. We wouldn't want that.

Besides, do you expect everyone to test each terrible black common just to confirm it is terrible? Do I really need to jam Bog Hoodlums into BUG Delver to confirm it will be terrible in Legacy?

[TsumiBand]

Why don't we agree to teach the controversy and let everyone decide their own truth? :tongue:
Too much evidence can make someone feel icky if it doesn't align with their gut feelings. We wouldn't want that.

Besides, do you expect everyone to test each terrible black common just to confirm it is terrible? Do I really need to jam Bog Hoodlums into BUG Delver to confirm it will be terrible in Legacy?

GODDAMMIT I SAID INB4!! INB4!! I already called it!!!

IIINNNN BBBBBBB 4444444

Respect the slang!

In seriousness though, I think what should happen is that card strength should be -- and typically is, I think -- evaluated by the scientific method. Question (Is CARDNAME good?); Hypothesis (I posit I can take advantage of CARDNAME in a meaningful way); Testing (I played 43 games with CARDNAME in the maindeck of Tight Sight); Analysis (CARDNAME significantly improved Tight Sight's odds of success against Balancing Tings and Teen Girl Squad but did nothing to stop Tymaret.dec).

Since the burden of proof is always on the asker, then, it pays to be discerning -- however, it also implicitly means that anyone who has gone through the rigamarole of testing a list with Vindictive Mob as a target for Entomb -> Exhume is in a better position to talk about its effectiveness than someone who hasn't. It does not mean we are required to run the gamut of cards to prove whether or not they work; it just means that we should accept results that hold up to scrutiny.

Which, coincidentally, is exactly why you should all believe me when I tell you that Knight of the Holy Nimbus is a fucking wrecking ball when the opponent's removal all requires :g::b: to cast. Maelstrom Pulse? Nice Brainspoil, clown car!

[Finn]

Well at any rate, I am rather disheartened that the look of the format is about to become even more retrenched in an azure hue. The one thing blue has never had in Legacy was true card draw. If the current crop of blue-centric aggro-control decks are able to maintain card advantage into the late game without sacrificing much of anything, I suspect that the available avenues to fight them will narrow considerably once players learn how to reconfigure those decks to fully take advantage of this new strength.

[MGB]

Exactly. These recent printings just make the best color in the format even better. It's like Delver all over again.

Why do blue decks not only get the most efficient 1-drop creature, the most efficient card filter, the most efficient tempo play (Force) but also the most efficient draw spell now as well?

It's as if Wizards designers looked at UW Miracles and Ux Delver decks and said "These decks are great and top8 every event. They play the best cards in the format. Why don't we add something to make them even better! A way to refuel with card draw in the late game? Brilliant! Let's add that to the next set!"

It's like donating $10 million to a rich Arab oil sheik. WTF, wizards?

[iamajellydonut]

The one thing blue has never had in Legacy was true card draw. If the current crop of blue-centric aggro-control decks are able to maintain card advantage into the late game without sacrificing much of anything, I suspect that the available avenues to fight them will narrow considerably once players learn how to reconfigure those decks to fully take advantage of this new strength.

Because, you know, for a modern example, Standstill didn't exist. Conditional and only useful in certain decks? Sure, but the same can about Treasure Cruise. Crappy though the examples may be looking back, blue has always had card draw. It's just been a long two or three years since anything was cost-effective enough to match the speed and utility of the meta.

[TsumiBand]

Because, you know, for a modern example, Standstill didn't exist. Conditional and only useful in certain decks? Sure, but the same can about Treasure Cruise.

Standstill

Standstill

Standstill

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=210556&type=card

I might not have noticed if a solemn attempt hadn't been made earlier to turn the thread into "Stop Saying Sultai".

There are a host of reasons why these aren't even functionally equivalent for the purposes of comparison. By themselves, Delve as a mechanic has already proven its playability previously via Tombstalker, and the sheer usefulness and ease of chucking cards into the graveyard is pretty well trotted tech - Goyf relies on it, Past in Flames and Ill-Gotten Gains operate on that theorem, Snapcaster says OHAI and on and on. It doesn't prove the card itself is any good, but if the card were a cake there's proof of solid ingredients.

I think there's little else that can be constructively be said about the cards in Carsten's article besides "shut up and shuffle up". Carsten enjoyed success playtesting the card; you've said that your experience on Cockatrice was not as positive; what actually remains is to get larger samples of people that will do likewise and have them report back.

[iamajellydonut]

There are a host of reasons why these aren't even functionally equivalent for the purposes of comparison.

No, they aren't functionally comparable, but they don't need to be for the simple statement of "blue did have playable draw". That was the only point I was trying to convey. That this isn't somehow breaking the mold. This isn't some "what the fuck" from beyond the grave. It's another option.

Standstill is conditional. No doubt about it. But so is everything else, and is Treasure Cruise really that significantly less conditional than the other options? Yes, it's a fairly simple task to land a Tombstalker if you put your mind to it, but that doesn't mean it can be run without a significant amount of planning and consideration. Everything from its high CMC to whether you need to draw cards in the first place to whether you need your graveyard whole to whether you have a graveyard at all. And even if you come away from that with thumbs up, is it even better than the options? 2U for draw three does seem great, but if it truly is, why not run Thirst for Knowledge or any of the other comparable candidates?

Most of my posts are written from work where I'm bored and starved and angry and tired, so I apologize for any posts that don't come across well. But part of what I was hoping to imply with that initial sneer was that Cockatrice is a poor excuse for anything even remotely close to "testing" and has only slightly more merit than outright goldfishing. Events will solve this. Anything up until then is just picking team Jacob or team Edward and being a bunch of assholes. Which I freely admit that I am.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Standstill

Standstill

Standstill

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=210556&type=card
Sometimes I struggle to understand your meaning. Then I realize I'm thinking too hard... :laugh:
I legitimately tried to figure out how that card was relevant to Legacy or this conversation for a couple minutes.


Most of my posts are written from work where I'm bored and starved and angry and tired, so I apologize for any posts that don't come across well. But part of what I was hoping to imply with that initial sneer was that Cockatrice is a poor excuse for anything even remotely close to "testing" and has only slightly more merit than outright goldfishing. Events will solve this. Anything up until then is just picking team Jacob or team Edward and being a bunch of assholes. Which I freely admit that I am.
Yaaay! We're all friends again!
And Starship Troopers fucking rules. :cool:

So my only interest in :u: is in how to beat it, but as long as we're picking teams and being assholes my guess is the delve cards are played as a 1- or 2-of in blue decks without Tarmogoyf. I know they'll see play cause I read it on theSource.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

It simply annoys me that those cards are blue. INB4 "color balance doesn't matter", ok, right , but then they could have been black, fine?

[Megadeus]

Yeah where's demonic tutor with delve?

[Finn]

It is rather annoying that this has happened to blue YET AGAIN. We seem to have this reaction once a year or so. Of course it almost does not matter if it were black or white or whatever. Delve is a mechanic that favors blue so hard the cards would still be in the same deck.

Jelly donut, do you see why Standstill is not pertinent here? You can not profitably plop Standstill into today's top decks the way you can with this card. It is not a useful comparison. I think you knew that too, which means you were just trolling. Let's group hug and be done with it all.

[TsumiBand]

The only reason I can think why neither card was Black is because Standard would be giving draw spells to decks like Mardu (:r::w::b:) Aggro which is typically not part of the blitzkrieg aggro package (iirc Thoughtcast was regarded as a blunder in this department).

The unfortunate state of newer Magic playing by adjusted rules is that Blue's lack of dominance in Standard means it can get Delvers, Snapcasters and other trinkets without running the other colors out of town. So even if either of these potent Delve cards coulda been Black, they are still rightly placed in Blue for Standard's purposes, and Modern can just put another common on the banlist if it's degenerate there, so.

[iamajellydonut]

Jelly donut, do you see why Standstill is not pertinent here? You can not profitably plop Standstill into today's top decks the way you can with this card. It is not a useful comparison. I think you knew that too, which means you were just trolling. Let's group hug and be done with it all.

I'm an asshole, but I'm not trolling. Your statement was "The one thing blue has never had in Legacy was true card draw.". Standstill alone makes that statement false. If you want to elaborate and say "blue has never had viable non-conditional draw", then maybe you're right, but that statement has no bearing on Treasure Cruise as it is also a very conditional card.

Treasure Cruise is card draw. Yay. Get over it. It's not good enough to be run as an engine and it's easily hated out. Its like has been seen before many times and will be seen again sometime. My only concern with this card, and what I posted when it was initially spoiled, is what BDP said about it being wasted design space.


Yaaay! We're all friends again!
And Starship Troopers fucking rules. :cool:

Ahh yiss. B^)

[bruizar]

I like impulse impulse (dig through time) much more than treasure cruise. How easy will it be to find a Force of Will PLUS something to pitch for it in response to a critical spell? That alone makes impulse impulse good good. Once you get it online, it doubles as a Counterspell at the least. Then you get all the digging / assembling upside added to it.

Σhttp://www.black-lotus.nl/mtg/lg/Khans_of_Tarkir/_Dig_Through_Time.jpg+http://www.black-lotus.nl/mtg/lg/Alliances/Force_of_Will.jpg>=http://www.black-lotus.nl/mtg/lg/Beta/Counterspell.jpg

Assuming people are correctly assessing how easy it is to set up Delve, and given the fact that Counterspell is a legacy playable card, this must also be a legacy playable card.


If you find 2x or 3x Dig Through time from casting your Dig Through Time, you can ship them to the bottom if you want.
If you draw 2x or 3x Treasure Cruise from casting your Treasure Cruise, you just Tormod's Crypted yourself for nothing (or really banking on Brainstorm to fix you).

[Finn]

Folks, I tested Treasure Cruise a bit more last night in a silly Kiki-Pestermite deck. I figure it is akin to a weak Show and Tell deck. It gave me the chance to include Faithless Looting. It was insane. I was able to consistently blitz through my deck. They are good even in multiples in this model, as I was just looting to get to the next Treasure Cruise as fast as possible.

I have now tried it in an aggro shell and in combo. Let me go on the record as saying this. The card might just define Legacy. If you aren't using this card the moment it is legal you are doing it wrong.

[bruizar]

Folks, I tested Treasure Cruise a bit more last night in a silly Kiki-Pestermite deck. I figure it is akin to a weak Show and Tell deck. It gave me the chance to include Faithless Looting. It was insane. I was able to consistently blitz through my deck. They are good even in multiples in this model, as I was just looting to get to the next Treasure Cruise as fast as possible.

I have now tried it in an aggro shell and in combo. Let me go on the record as saying this. The card might just define Legacy. If you aren't using this card the moment it is legal you are doing it wrong.

relic of progenitus will make you eat those words. If that does;t, chains of mephistopheles will. if that doesn't, notion thief will.

[Finn]

So, there are cards in existence that counter this one, so it is therefor not good. Got it. Thx.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

relic of progenitus will make you eat those words. If that does;t, chains of mephistopheles will. if that doesn't, notion thief will.
Except for Relic that is (and was in Merfolk) maindeckable, the others are either too expensive (moneywise), or too expensive (mana cost) or straight unplayable. Also, Chains do nothing against Dig, but at least it stops Looting and such.

[bruizar]

Except for Relic that is (and was in Merfolk) maindeckable, the others are either too expensive (moneywise), or too expensive (mana cost) or straight unplayable. Also, Chains do nothing against Dig, but at least it stops Looting and such.

One of the reasons I like Dig more :-)

[bruizar]

So, there are cards in existence that counter this one, so it is therefor not good. Got it. Thx.

Well, you said define legacy... That's quiet a statement. I think there is enough hate to make sure that can't happen. I mean, otherwise Dredge would be defining legacy as well right?

[rufus]

Well, you said define legacy... That's quiet a statement. I think there is enough hate to make sure that can't happen. I mean, otherwise Dredge would be defining legacy as well right?

Dredge is much more vulnerable AFAICT.

I posted this elsewhere, but the problem is that I have a hard time coming up with hate cards that actually make playing Treasure Cruise a bad idea. What's the best case scenario for Relic of Progenitus against Treasure Cruise, and how far ahead will that put the Relic of Progenitus player?

As far as I can tell, the best answers that are currently available are generic ones like Force of Will or Commandeer.

[bruizar]

Dredge is much more vulnerable AFAICT.

I posted this elsewhere, but the problem is that I have a hard time coming up with hate cards that actually make playing Treasure Cruise a bad idea. What's the best case scenario for Relic of Progenitus against Treasure Cruise, and how far ahead will that put the Relic of Progenitus player?

As far as I can tell, the best answers that are currently available are generic ones like Force of Will or Commandeer.

Relic of Progenitus can pressure the graveyard over turns to keep it suppressed so it will take more turns to set up a delve graveyard big enough to cast Treasure Cruise. Once that last card is on the stack, you can pop Relic of Progenitus. Since Treasure Cruise is sorcery speed, there's nothing he can do about it so that Treasure Cruise will be sitting in his hand for another X turns. Meanwhile, the card draw from Relic puts you behind even further, since you've been durdling to get a proper graveyard, all to have it marginalized at the lowly cost of 1 colorless mana.

I thought about Commandeer too as a sideboard card, and that could turn into a hilarious flashback of Shaymora.

IMO Dig Through Time is where it's at. Card quality > card quantity, selection > random, instant > sorcery

Also, Empty the Pits in Pox over Tombstalker

[apple713]

i'll probably buy some foil treasure cruises for the artwork alone. probably never use but 1-2 at a time.

[Finn]

Bruizar, I mean it though. The card is that good. We are all going to have to find ways to fight it with Tormod's Crypt, Rest in Peace, Spirit of the Lab, I dunno, Chalice@16 or something. But we will be complaining about it soon enough.

[bruizar]

Bruizar, I mean it though. The card is that good. We are all going to have to find ways to fight it with Tormod's Crypt, Rest in Peace, Spirit of the Lab, I dunno, Chalice@16 or something. But we will be complaining about it soon enough.

I hope we will, I love the new delve cards and I love the fact that legacy is getting more like vintage (e.g. less creatures more utility)! Just keep your eyes open though, because we all know what happened when we were all busy looking at Terminus and Entreat the Angels during the miracle cycle spoiler season.. Price of Bonfire of the Damned jumped up damn hard, albeit not for legacy reasons.

[Megadeus]

I'm waiting for some one to cast a chalice for 1 then see their confused look when it doesn't counter the new ancestral.

[bruizar]

I'm waiting for some one to cast a chalice for 1 then see their confused look when it doesn't counter the new ancestral.

How's the ruling for Thorn of Amethyst or Nether Void? Can you pay for that cost by delving extra?

[Megadeus]

How's the ruling for Thorn of Amethyst or Nether Void? Can you pay for that cost by delving extra?

I don't believe so. Don't quote me on that though

[rufus]

Relic of Progenitus can pressure the graveyard over turns to keep it suppressed so it will take more turns to set up a delve graveyard big enough to cast Treasure Cruise. Once that last card is on the stack, you can pop Relic of Progenitus. Since Treasure Cruise is sorcery speed, there's nothing he can do about it so that Treasure Cruise will be sitting in his hand for another X turns. Meanwhile, the card draw from Relic puts you behind even further, since you've been durdling to get a proper graveyard, all to have it marginalized at the lowly cost of 1 colorless mana...

The thing is that if Relic of Progenitus is on the field and Treasure Cruise is 'dead' in the hand the CA offsets so - the Relic player is behind by :1:, and it's worse if the player with Treasure Cruise can recover the card value with something like Brainstorm. Similarly, if you're leaving mana open so you can pop Relic of Progenius on reaction, that's mana you're not spending on something else.

We'll see how things shake out.

[rufus]

How's the ruling for Thorn of Amethyst or Nether Void? Can you pay for that cost by delving extra?

Delve says you pay for :1: of the casting cost by exiling so it works for anything that's part of the casting cost. Nether Void doesn't change the casting cost, so delve won't help there. Thorn of Amethyst changes the casting cost, so delve can be used to pay for the extra.

[btm10]

I believe that you can Delve through Thorn/Lodestone/Thalia/Sphere of Resistance, but you can't do it for Nether Void, Daze, or Trinisphere. The first of the two that you can't pay don't increase the cost, they just counter it unless some other cost is payed. Trinisphere continues to be Trinisphere and make everything cost at least 3, and is always checked last when determining costs.

[apple713]

The thing is that if Relic of Progenitus is on the field and Treasure Cruise is 'dead' in the hand the CA offsets so - the Relic player is behind by :1:, and it's worse if the player with Treasure Cruise can recover the card value with something like Brainstorm. Similarly, if you're leaving mana open so you can pop Relic of Progenius on reaction, that's mana you're not spending on something else.

We'll see how things shake out.

you can't relic in response to delve... if the opponent has priority they get to delve and then after casting the spell you get priority. with relic in play the opponent won't be able to add cards to grave fast enough so there is no need to keep 1 mana open. Relic may just find it's way into more decks because of these delve cards. Just another side effect that further hates on grave based strategies... RIP reanimator.

[iamajellydonut]

I believe that you can Delve through Thorn/Lodestone/Thalia/Sphere of Resistance, but you can't do it for Nether Void, Daze, or Trinisphere. The first of the two that you can't pay don't increase the cost, they just counter it unless some other cost is payed. Trinisphere continues to be Trinisphere and make everything cost at least 3, and is always checked last when determining costs.

You can use delve to pay for the additional costs created by cards like Thalia as they are costs to the actual spell. You can't use it for things like Nether Void because Nether Void is a triggered ability and not a cost.

You can, however, sneak delve spells through Trinisphere. The rules change for convoke was also applied to delve. Exiling cards from your graveyard no longer reduces the cost of the spell. It pays for the cost of the spell.

[Barook]

I'm more interested how we effectively combat these cards in the MD, as they might become the next big thing.

Spirit of the Labyrinthh can stop the card draw of TC, but not Dig. DRS (and Scavenging Ooze) can deny them some Delve food. Papa Teeg just gives them the finger in general.

SB options are GY hate or REB/Pyroblast. Countering the cards after them emptying their GY could hurt them to some extend.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I'm more interested how we effectively combat these cards in the MD, as they might become the next big thing.

Spirit of the Labyrinthh can stop the card draw of TC, but not Dig. DRS (and Scavenging Ooze) can deny them some Delve food. Papa Teeg just gives them the finger in general.

SB options are GY hate or REB/Pyroblast. Countering the cards after them emptying their GY could hurt them to some extend.

Yeah, being hit by Pyroblast after one commited half of the grave to delve... that'll be pretty annoying. Akin to a submerged Tombstalker.
I'm interested in which decks might pack the card. For now I can see it fitting into High Tide combo. Some kind of UR combo/control deck faciliating this card, Faithless Looting and/or Izzet Charm? It definitely needs a combo finish (or at least something similar to Miracles wincons), as I don't think that any 60-cards pile with usual cantrip suite and DTT on top of it, will have enough spare slots for anything else then a two-card combo win (with maybe some backup). But I may be wrong.
Frankly, I'm not even sure if I want this card to be good. On one hand, I preorderd them just in case, so I should be glad if they become staples. On the other hand, if this further cementes the blue's dominance (and the necessity to fight graveyards), the price of blue duals will only increase and the chokehold of Legacy strengthens. Hm...

[TheArchitect]

Dig Through Time is probably going into every blue midrange-control deck as a 1-3. Definitely going in Esper, deathblade and Miracles (I can't speak for shardless due to lack of experience with the deck). I also would not be surprised to see it in stuff like Omnitell, Sneak and Show, or High tide as a 2-3 of. You don't need to play any terrible cards like faithless looting, or cut good cards like snapcaster mage, RIP or deathrite shaman to make it work*. The card is just good in decks that already exist. It gives an incredible amount of mid-lategame (turn 4+) power. It allows you to regain some card advantage, or find bullets, but also can unbury you from mana denial, or just be a functional counterspell as someone mentioned earlier. Also, casting and only delving for 2-5 feels just as powerful.

*Anyone familiar with Miracles can attest to how irrelevant the dis-synergy between Snapcaster mage and RIP is, and for those unfamiliar you basically NEVER SB out snapcasters when bringing RIP in since both cards are incredibly powerful. This is a similar situation: if you have a RIP or a deathrite you got to activate a bunch of times, in the matchups were you are using those cards, you probably are in such a good spot that dig would just be win more anyways.

GY hate might more valuable, but again, if you are bringing in stuff like relic, Nihil Spellbomb or RIP against a deck like esper or miracles so they can't cast 1-3 cards in their deck, and their 2-3 snaps turn into ambush vipers, I don't think you are getting the better end of the deal.


Just a little Antecdote from test:
Miracles vs Esper Stoneblade (me)
We both have 7-8 lands and no hands but opponent has CB/Top out. EoT I dig (only having to delve 3) and find: 3 land, Clique, SFM, Jace, Council's Judgment. Take Jace and Judgment. Untap, CJ, opponent does not have 3 drop and must flip top or lose it. Vote for Balance. Resolve Jace, fateseal top to the bottom. GG.

This might sound like "the nuts" but looking at the top 7 cards of your library is really good. Its like paying 7 life with grisselbrand except instead of drawing FoW, Sneak attack and a bunch of redundant combo pieces and lands that will just get discarded, you just only get the 2 best cards that you wanted anyways.


------------------

Treasure cruise, I don't know about yet. I have not tested it yet, but it looks much less exciting than dig. Don't get me wrong, drawing 3 for 3 mana is even still good, but the fact that dig is an instant makes it much more appealing, and makes me feel much less bad tapping all my lands and casting it for 4 mana occasionally. I would not be surprised to see cruise in stuff like UR or UWR delver. I am skeptical that it will see too much play in RUG or BUG since they are already really exposed to GY hate.

------------------

Counterspells are obviously good against the delve cards, but similar to how much getting your Tombstalker submerged sucks, I imagine Remand will make these cards a lot less good in modern at least.

[btm10]

Dig Through Time is probably going into every blue midrange-control deck as a 1-3. Definitely going in Esper, deathblade and Miracles (I can't speak for shardless due to lack of experience with the deck).

This basically mirrors my results with BUG Control (the 4 TNN version, not the Veteran Explorer/Planeswalkers deck). As a 2 of it seems incredibly powerful and the selectivity is fantastic. I've been casting it for 1UU and 2UU a lot with no ill effects. I don't even think DTT has significant downside with Snapcaster Mage or Deathrite. Like you said, you either Delve for one less to save the card you want, or you just extract value from the GY card I haven't looked at it in Shardless yet, but I feel like the fact that it's not Cascadeable and can't be used to set up a Cascade makes it worse than Sylvan Library and Ponder, which are what I currently run as 1-of manipulation spells. It may take the Ponder slot, but I'm definitely not sure of that without testing.

[bruizar]

Agree with both of you.

[apple713]

i feel like team america gains so much from treasure cruise do to its ability to dump cards in the grave in a similar fashion like rug delver. the difference is that team america does not really take advantage of threshold like rug. The one way they could is to use cruise, maybe dtt but i think cruise is ultimately better. Both will probably result in 2x relevant spells and cruise will probably end up with a land / wasted card.

[Finn]

The card that benefitted the most from TC has actually been Force of Will for me. Drawing all those cards makes the exiled card not hurt much at all. I see myself in the TC camp on this (extra card, 1 less mana), but I have not tested DTT at all. I should also note that I have only cast it for more than U once. Faithless Looting makes it simple to keep the yard full. And I do like this card best in UWR.

[wcm8]

In addition to Force of Will, I would consider Misdirection and possibly even Commandeer as cards benefiting from cheap Draw-3s. Live the dream.

[Amon Amarth]

Dig and Cruise seem pretty dang good in Miracles. I could definitely see running them there.

[phazonmutant]

Guess I should have been posting in this thread. I've been spamming the individual deck threads of decks I've been testing :rolleyes: I'm really glad to see other people are actually testing these cards. The threads inexplicably are dead quiet about them.

So far I've only played Dig in combo decks (and it's been insane). Some decks have legitimate problems getting UU early (BUG Delver, Deathblade) so Dig is off the table. I suspect Cruise is just better in those style decks anyway though. I hadn't thought of playing Dig in Esperblade. That deck runs more permission usually and has a more stable manabase, so that makes sense. The cards are both super busted, it's hard for me to tell which is better.

[bruizar]

In addition to Force of Will, I would consider Misdirection and possibly even Commandeer as cards benefiting from cheap Draw-3s. Live the dream.

Treasure Cruise doesn't target, so Commandeer works but Misdrection doesn't (correct me if wrong).

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

Those cards are not the new mental misstep. They are not as versatile and easy to hate if you build your strategy around them. But they will be played a lot as 2-3 of's in various U decks that very little interaction with their graveyard as they make very potent mid/lategame cards. If you play only few, the occasional unwanted draw can be handled with brainstorm and FoW.

Ad Nauseam into them really sucks, so they probably are for the wishboard only.

People are going to cry that U got another boost.

[Zombie]

People are going to cry that U got another boost.

It's honestly kind of tiring to see U get all manner of out-of-color nuttyness and then these kinds of cards get printed.

[wcm8]

Treasure Cruise doesn't target, so Commandeer works but Misdrection doesn't (correct me if wrong).


You're correct, but I wasn't actually talking about stealing those cards. I was just saying that Pitch cards in general are a lot better when you can easily replenish your hand. Force of Will is extra-powerful in Cascade/Ancestral Vision decks because the -1 card disadvantage is hardly relevant once you fire off one Vision.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

You're correct, but I wasn't actually talking about stealing those cards. I was just saying that Pitch cards in general are a lot better when you can easily replenish your hand. Force of Will is extra-powerful in Cascade/Ancestral Vision decks because the -1 card disadvantage is hardly relevant once you fire off one Vision.

UWR Delver
UR Delver
UBR Delver ( TC instead of Dark Confidant )

These decks should all jam Treasure Cruise. There is no downside to it.

I will run probably tinker with 3 Treasure Cruise and add a Misdirection to the main.

Basically shave black out of my Grixis Delver list and replace Dark Confidant and Cabal Therapy with Treasure Cruise, Misdirection and x.

[MGB]

So essentially it's just completely wrong to play anything but blue in Legacy now.

I mean, it was challenging to play something non-blue before, but you could still be somewhat competitive. Now, with ridiculous draw-3s that always refuel their hand mid-game, it's just impossible to beat a blue deck consistently with anything non-blue.

Thanks Wizards.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

Notion Thief and Spirit of the Labyrinth could be interesting against Treasure Cruise.

I suspect the Thief will make sideboard appearances especially in mirror matches.

[Barook]

Notion Thief and Spirit of the Labyrinth could be interesting against Treasure Cruise.

I suspect the Thief will make sideboard appearances especially in mirror matches.
Thief is quite mana-intensive and Spirit lacks flash. And both do jackshit against Dig.

If it was only Treasure Cruise, I might agree. But adding Dig to the mix makes it alot harder to hate the new Delve cards out.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

Thief is quite mana-intensive and Spirit lacks flash. And both do jackshit against Dig.

If it was only Treasure Cruise, I might agree. But adding Dig to the mix makes it alot harder to hate the new Delve cards out.

Have you seen Dack Fayden + Notion Thief control lists in Vintage?

I suspect that Treasure Cruise might enable the revival of midrange grindy control decks that stop decks early and then bury you with card advantage.

Dig Through Time will be much less played than Treasure Cruise. I think it is better but the color requirement of UU will make it much less played.

[tescrin]

I think Delver runs too tight of a ship (LOL PUN!) to include more than 1-2 of these; and 1-2 ofs shouldn't be any more backbreaking than random 1-ofs they could've ran anyway (Loam for example.) I think as soon as people start running these cards much, the extra midrangey-ness and unreliability of Delver in the early game will allow combo to slip through. I'd expect to see a rise in Fair decks in the short term and a rise in combo in a month or two.

These are exactly the kinds of cards that help people slog out the late game and once there's enough slogging/focus on fair, TES/ANT will start blowing people up again.


@Jelly
I can't find a rules change that keeps Trinisphere from working. Given that trinisphere has always cared about the actual mana paid I'm quite skeptical; can you assist?
(I agree on Sphere, Thalia, Void,

[Zombie]

"Do you want to play Blue?"
"Yeah, sounds good."
"What have you got sleeved up this time?"
"Miracles. Damn, that deck got good with Dig."
"Ah. I'm running UBR Delver with 4 maindeck Pyroblasts."
"Wow, sounds fun. Glad our format is managed competently, right?"
"Agreed. Blue is such a fun format."

[Zombie]

@Jelly
I can't find a rules change that keeps Trinisphere from working. Given that trinisphere has always cared about the actual mana paid I'm quite skeptical; can you assist?
(I agree on Sphere, Thalia, Void,

Trinisphere makes the card cost at least 3. Cruise and Dig cost 8, always. Convoke and Delver used to lower the cost of playing the spell, but now they pay for the cost. So you can cast them by tapping a couple Islands.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=370539&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=386705&type=card

[iamajellydonut]

@Jelly
I can't find a rules change that keeps Trinisphere from working. Given that trinisphere has always cared about the actual mana paid I'm quite skeptical; can you assist?
(I agree on Sphere, Thalia, Void,

Gurus feel free to interject, but the change is that delve doesn't reduce the cost of the spell any more. Pre-change, each card exiled reduced the mana cost of a spell, meaning that a fully delved Tombstalker would have an end cost of :b::b: and would therefore be affected by Trinisphere. Post-change, each card exiled is basically the same as paying mana. So, while it's still landed for :b::b:, Tombstalker technically costs :6::b::b: to play and dodges Trinisphere.

[PirateKing]

@Jelly
I can't find a rules change that keeps Trinisphere from working. Given that trinisphere has always cared about the actual mana paid I'm quite skeptical; can you assist?
(I agree on Sphere, Thalia, Void,

Delve doesn't reduce the cost of a card, it pays for the card, which is the last step, the one after you determine cost, which is where 3shpere goes. For example, Thalia, Trinisphere and Nether Void on the board. You play Treasure Cruise. Cost is 7U+1 because of Thalia. The cost of 9 is more than 3, so Trinisphere is taken care of. Costs are paid, with any combination of mana and Delve. Treasure Cruise is cast. Nether Void triggers and the spell is countered unless you play 3, which cannot be delved. 3 is paid, Treasure Cruise resolves. Applause. Curtain.

[rufus]

I can't find a rules change that keeps Trinisphere from working...

If you look in the section of the rules that deals with delve you can see that it applies after total cost is determined. That means that it applies after the 3sphere has had any chance to raise costs.

[Finn]

Worded like phyrexian mana now. You are still paying the full cost every time. You just have an option to go cash or plastic.

Looking forward, I will be playing Delve Delver of some sort. I might shorten that to DD or just Juggs, so as to really piss off Starcity.

[Richard Cheese]

Worded like phyrexian mana now. You are still paying the full cost every time. You just have an option to go cash or plastic.

Looking forward, I will be playing Delve Delver of some sort. I might shorten that to DD or just Juggs, so as to really piss off Starcity.

Best idea in the whole thread so far. Probably should be Juggz though. Would also accept "Big'Uns" if you're also in the generation that grew up on Married With Children.

[Barook]

Would also accept "Big'Uns" if you're also in the generation that grew up on Married With Children.
+1

This seems convoluted enough to troll SCG hard.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Delve doesn't reduce the cost of a card, it pays for the card, which is the last step, the one after you determine cost, which is where 3shpere goes. For example, Thalia, Trinisphere and Nether Void on the board. You play Treasure Cruise. Cost is 7U+1 because of Thalia. The cost of 9 is more than 3, so Trinisphere is taken care of. Costs are paid, with any combination of mana and Delve. Treasure Cruise is cast. Nether Void triggers and the spell is countered unless you play 3, which cannot be delved. 3 is paid, Treasure Cruise resolves. Applause. Curtain.

For some reason I really love this post. :laugh:

[rufus]

Worded like phyrexian mana now. You are still paying the full cost every time. You just have an option to go cash or plastic.

Looking forward, I will be playing Delve Delver of some sort. I might shorten that to DD or just Juggs, so as to really piss off Starcity.

Except that you're supposed to make the phyrexian mana decision before total mana cost is determined, so it doesn't count as mana for 3-sphere. Yay for WotC consistency.

[TsumiBand]

Except that you're supposed to make the phyrexian mana decision before total mana cost is determined, so it doesn't count as mana for 3-sphere. Yay for WotC consistency.

Hmm yeah, as I troll the rules a bit to try and see why this might be, it looks like it is precisely because you decide Phyrexian mana as you would a mode of the spell (like while you pick which bullet point on Sultai Charm you wish to employ). That's a little sketch, right?

Probably better to compare Delve directly to Convoke (which has indeed already been done in the thread) than Phyrexian mana, for that reason.

[Richard Cheese]

+1

This seems convoluted enough to troll SCG hard.

Except they would see Delver and immediately list it as U[x][y] Delver.

[tescrin]

So wait.. the change is to Delve/Convoke or is to Trinisphere? I thought Trinisphere checks the amount of mana paid *after everything else.*
I.E. the reason SoR and 3Sphere don't work together is because SoR applies right before Trini checks.

Did this change happen with M15? And did it happen by moving stuff around (when Trini checks/convoke delve) or by changing the way convoke/delve work?
It still feels like the same FoW argument of "I paid it by exiling a card", where the CMC and amount paid is different (and thus Trini hoses it.)

[nedleeds]

To delve and convoke, delve used to read "costs 1 less".

[rufus]

So wait.. the change is to Delve/Convoke or is to Trinisphere? I thought Trinisphere checks the amount of mana paid *after everything else.*
I.E. the reason SoR and 3Sphere don't work together is because SoR applies right before Trini checks.

It's a change to Delve. (Compare the oracle and printed text on Tombstalker.) For some reason WotC decided to make Delve and Convoke 'like mana' for the purposes of 3sphere.

Edit: I don't know when the change was made.

[iamajellydonut]

It's a change to Delve. (Compare the oracle and printed text on Tombstalker.) For some reason WotC decided to make Delve and Convoke 'like mana' for the purposes of 3sphere.

Edit: I don't know when the change was made.

The change to convoke, and by extension delve, was made in conjunction with M14 for mechanical reasons.

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/255c&page=3

[tescrin]

Looks like it was M14 changes that caused it; but it wasn't important for Legacy.
http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3765901

It's still odd to wrap my head around rules wise; but w/e.

Ninja'd I guess :(

[TsumiBand]

The stated reasoning is, AFAICT, pretty sound actually. It's ultimately more intuitive and makes better sense to allow these mechanics to pay for the spell rather than reduce the cost.


702.50 Convoke

I don't remember exactly how the conversation started, but one day a few months ago R&D ended up talking about how weird it was that you could "overtap" when casting a spell using convoke. That was weird, past-me thought, so I started thinking about ways to change that. As a cost-reduction ability, it couldn't really be contained. You can make a spell cost a billion mana less if you want to. I sought the advice of Rules Manager Emeritus Mark Gottlieb. Together, we came up with a new paradigm for convoke: what if instead of reducing the cost, tapping creatures was just another way of paying mana?

So now it is! You don't declare which creatures you're tapping ahead of time, just like you don't declare what lands you'll be tapping ahead of time. When it comes time to pay the spell's costs (rule 601.2g), you can tap creatures rather than pay mana. Note that this is after you have a chance to activate mana abilities (rule 601.2f). This means that if you intend to sacrifice a creature to activate a mana ability, you can't also tap that creature for convoke.

702.65 Delve

Once we worked out the details of convoke, changing delve in a similar manner was natural.

I'm kind of a fan of changes that utilize the same concepts to attain multiple outcomes -- it beats the hell out of jamming weird rules in to make things do what other things already do (ohai Strive, I dint see u there). If the act of paying mana for a spell can be hidden in Convoke, and it works as it did under 95% of in-game situations previously, hey so much the better.

Plus, you know, now that Prohibit isn't nearly as strong against Chord of Calling decks, it's only a matter of time before Brainstorm-driven decks are entirely driven out of the format by big expensive Green spells. Yissssss.

[iamajellydonut]

Plus, you know, now that Prohibit isn't nearly as strong against Chord of Calling decks, it's only a matter of time before Brainstorm-driven decks are entirely driven out of the format by big expensive Green spells. Yissssss.

What does this even mean?

[TsumiBand]

What does this even mean?

It means it's real good against those Standstill decks

[rufus]

...
I'm kind of a fan of changes that utilize the same concepts to attain multiple outcomes -- it beats the hell out of jamming weird rules in to make things do what other things already do (ohai Strive, I dint see u there). If the act of paying mana for a spell can be hidden in Convoke, and it works as it did under 95% of in-game situations previously, hey so much the better.
...

Except that we now have two kinds of alternative cost - the convoke/delve kind and everything else, and from an aesthetic perspective if there's any mechanic that should be considered an alternative mana payment rather than a cost reduction, then it's phyrexian mana.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Alright, I finally have the time to actually catch up on the thread. I won't give as many detailed answers to every post as I usually try to do because, well, I'd still be here next year ;)

It's funny to read through the thread as a whole now. Much talk about Sultai et;al in the beginning, then some toning down of the hype (and I freely admit I'm quite hyped about both of these. Drawing cards is sweet.) and finally others coming back with test results (some of which mirror mine, others which don't exactly) and now most posts seem to have turned to the "oh god, what are these cards going to do to the format exactly?" craze I've been in for more than a week now. Anyway, some more useful feedback:

@Sultai &Co: Not my idea, made me cringe just as much as it did you guys when I went over the posted version of the article, trust me. Nothing I can do about the change however.

@Finn: Well, why am I not surprised to see you're one of the first people to really test them instead of using your gut feeling *g*. Happy to see they've been just as nutty for you as they've been for me. Faithless Looting sounds like it might be going a little too far though - I guess having four Ancestrals means the card selection makes the Careful Study effect better than something card-neutral like Mental Note?

@Dig vs Cruise: Both are incredibly powerful, no question, and as mentioned in the article, I think which one to use depends on the deck at hand. Control/Midrange and slow (more on that below) Combo decks will want dig, anything reasonably aggressive or quite redundant is probably better of with Cruise.

@Dig/Cruise in combo: I don't think the cards are a valid choice for Storm or Sneak and Show (maybe as a Wish-target in TES - good idea, Lem) simply because the turn you can usually enable it if you put your mind to it lies somewhere between three and four. At that point you generally don't want to be fiddling with your library, you want your opponent dead. Once you commonly plan to go to turn 4 (High Tide, Solidarity, OmniShow, etc) Dig suddenly becomes ridiculously good (yes, I've done a little bit of testing with tweaked versions of both Solidarity and High Tide just for the heck of it). Not sure if it's enough to bring those decks back to the forefront of the format but definitely something to keep in mind. Solidarity really seems to love Dig, btw, too bad you can't wish for exiled cards any more.

@Fighting Dig/Cruise: Dedicated gravevard hate like RIP isn't a good way to fight these, for the same reason Chains of Mephistopheles and Spirit of the Labyrinth aren't all over the format. You spend a card to potentially hurt your opponent's draw engine. Note that drawing cards, while incredibly sweet and powerful, is almost never what a deck actuall does. If you spend your time fighting their draw engine, their normal cards they play instead will just end up killing you.
Relic is a little different because it cycles but it's also pretty bad at fighting the delve spells. The tap ability will have a lot of trouble keeping graveyards empty once people reach 3+ mana and cracking it means a little careful hand/fetchland on table management can easily result in Delve being enabled again basically a turn later. This is a format in which playing 3 spells a turn and cracking a Fetchland is the norm, after all. In addition you also can't wait for too long to crack your Relic as otherwise they might just Delve before you even decide to empty their yard (especially with Dig being instant speed).
In my opinion by far the best way to fight these spells is to counter them. It eats up the full Delve investment and keeps the opponent from the expected refuel to enable the next copy. I fully expect maindeck Pyroblast to be a real thing a month from now as a result (Pyroblast not REB because you can just dump Pyro to enable your own delve in a pinch).

@Trinisphere rules change: Good to know, I was aware of the Thalia (etc) interaction but didn't get the memo about the new functionality of Delver. That's pretty random, actually, and quite powerful when it comes up (even if that''s going to be very rarely).

@Combo taking advantage if Delver & co play Cruise: Look at the cards you're likely to cut into for these cards. If I'm playing ANT I'd much rather my opponent drew a three or four mana Planeswalker than a Treasure Cruise. Playing one of those options likely gets them killed unless they already have full control of the game anyway, the other draws them into more disruption with two or three mana open. Go figure.

If there's anything I forgot to address, let me know and I'll get back to you. Oh, and by the way, thanks everybody for reading and participating in the discussion. You guys are awesome :)

/edit: Btw, does that rules change also mean you can't just delve away your whole yard any more should you want to do so for some reason?

[TsumiBand]

Except that we now have two kinds of alternative cost - the convoke/delve kind and everything else, and from an aesthetic perspective if there's any mechanic that should be considered an alternative mana payment rather than a cost reduction, then it's phyrexian mana.

Hey, I sure didn't say it was perfect.

Y'all know me, I ramble at length about the idiocy of creating a game-state where the dynamic changes from "Destroy target creature" to "Vote on a creature you control to be exiled" because it's a redundant system that also creates weaknesses in several other legitimate lines of play while forsaking the mechanics that the game operated on for like twenny yrrrs prior. But this kind of stuff is probably like shoring up bad code, right -- you fix the stuff you know about, but it isn't until some other module breaks that you go "FUCK I FORGOT ABOUT AFFINITY OHHH BOB SAGET" and refactor the thing that breaks the system.

Why Phyrexian mana specifically hadn't been touched when it is, in fact, a mana symbol on a card and would thus make logical sense as "a kind of mana" moreso than punting cards from the trash, I do not know for sure. I guess let's grab torches and pitchforks and go make Tom La Pille's life suck until he talks Sam Stoddard into getting Tabak to fix it? vOv

[wcm8]

So, with a significant amount of further testing under my belt, I've definitely jumped onto the [deserved] hype train. Treasure Cruise has proven itself to push Tempo decks into an even HIGHER tier of competitive dominance. I would not be surprised to see it banned come the next Set rotation. This card may see a similar amount of play as Mental Misstep did in its hey-day, making the format devolve into Delver vs. The World. I guess we will at least get one GP of play out of it in Jersey.

The arguments in favor of it have mostly been outlined ad nauseam in this thread and in the article, but here are some of my personal observations:

1. Playing 4 copies is the right call. You want to cast this card every game, ideally twice or thrice. Playing it "safe" by only running 2 or 3 copies makes it much less likely for you to hit one at the critical moment, which generally speaking is right around turn 3/4 -- the turning point of most Legacy games, and also when you're in range of casting the card. Outside of unlikely scenarios like having 3 copies in your opening hand or whatever, it is fairly easy to cast multiple copies in each game. Additional copies can be manipulated away via cantrips and pitching to Force, so Rest in Peace aside I've never had trouble casting it.

2. Tempo decks (Daze, FoW, Ponder, Bstorm, Delver, Wasteland) is obviously the correct shell for Treasure Cruise. Maybe UGx Infect would be good too. I have not given Dig Through Time much testing, but my suspicion is that it's better in dedicated Control or possibly Combo. The fact that you can play Cruise for 1 mana and then have a few more open mana sources afterwards to deploy your freshly drawn threats is extremely relevant. Also, since Tempo decks tend to run a bunch of redundant threats, Drawing 3 blind is nearly as/sometimes more powerful than the best 2 from the top 7 like DTT. However, I will fully admit to needing to give Dig some testing... but I find it somewhat difficult to believe that it would dethrone Cruise in UXx Tempo.

3. I think it may be worth running additional 'Pitch' cards like Misdirection, (maybe) Commandeer, Pyrokinesis, etc. to take advantage of all the card advantage and generate insane tempo. Land Grant could be another way of feeding your graveyard while still being a 'Land' slot (just don't get Dazed!). However, I think there's no real need to make a bunch of concessions to fuel Cruise; like Tarmogoyf, the card rewards you for simply playing the game. I think it's best use is to make an already powerful shell even stronger, not necessarily to build a deck around drawing a ton of cards (cause then what..? You need to kill your opponent somehow.) This is why it slots in perfectly with BUG, UR, and UWR Delver. RUG and BURG might need to make some modifications, but I'm not so sure that the power of Nimble Mongoose outweighs Cruising.

4. Shardless Agent -> Ancestral Vision seems kind of pointless when you can just play Team America with 4 Treasure Cruise. I would expect BUG Control decks to modify their approach and incorporate Dig or Cruise for card advantage.

5. There is *some* minor strategic tension with running Goyf, DRS, and Cruise all in one deck, especially if your opponent is playing a similar strategy. But it's not usually relevant given how quickly graveyards get filled up, Rest in Peace aside. DRS is still going to be the best 1-drop in Legacy by a mile.

6. My guess is UW(r) is probably going to be the best shell for Cruise. Equipment mops up creature decks, the sideboard options are strong and can fight just about anything, and unlike BUG its threats don't require a graveyard to power them up. Additionally, if an opponent decides to hate on your Treasure Cruising, they are pretty much just wasting slots to fight a small portion of your deck and are ignoring the part that actually kills them. Win-win.

7. DRS, Relic of Progenitus, Scavenging Ooze (in Elves) and Rest in Peace are pretty much the only cards that seem efficient and broad enough to "hate" on Cruise without being too narrow. I'd guess that UWr Miracles might go back to running the Helm Combo as a finisher instead of Entreat. Stuff like Notion Thief is pretty slow but could be okay in a BUG mirror. Non-blue decks can try to run anti-draw spells, but they will continue to lose in multi-round tournaments due to their own inconsistencies. Not only that, but running 1-of copies of Dread of Night or Sulfur Elemental in the SB is feasible if you're going to be blasting through half your deck in a typical game. Or, Darkblast helps fuel it.

Alright, that's enough for now. Any doubters that remain should really go ahead and test the card and see for themselves. Treasure Cruise is the real deal.

I also like that this is going to be nicknamed Tom Cruise and/or players will be Cruising. This is me every time I resolve it: http://i.imgur.com/6xZAGGs.jpg

[nevilshute]

Pleasure Cruise :cool:

[bruizar]

I'll be playing a Dack Fayden / Notion Thief brew in the near future (while running my own delve cards).

[TheArchitect]

I gave treasure cruise some brief testing in Deathblade. It was the nuts. It basically turned the deck into shardless BUG but without having to play bad cards, or not play good 1-2cmc cards. I think people are right: Dig in draw-go control and slow combo. Cruise in redundant tempo/midrange decks. I am still skepitical about these cards being 4 ofs. 3 seemed perfect for cruise, but I will try 4 as well. I don't think Dig should be a 4 of though.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

I'll be playing a Dack Fayden / Notion Thief brew in the near future (while running my own delve cards).

Thought the same. Eventhough Dack is not as good in legacy as in vintage his +1 is incredible in a deck with TC or DTT and Notion Thief combo is terrific. Notion Thief will also be in general great in the meta to play against Treasure Cruise. Sure it costs 4 mana but Treasure Cruise is going to be played on turn 3-6 and the decks playing it won't be super fast.

Grixis seems like a great spot for Treasure Cruise anyway. Even Grixis Tempo although replacing Dark Confidant with Treasure Cruise gets you very close to dropping black splash completely or only playing it for Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize.

The one thing I don't hear mentioned enough is that Dig through Time has a few more distinct advantages over Treasure Cruise that might be relevant when playing real tournaments with these cards and not just testing.

DTT is Instant which is obviously great.
DTT can be cast in respond to find Force of Will or Misdirection plus another blue card. If you run blue you likely would have 4 Force of Will, 1 Misdirection and 4 DTT/TC. The chance to find one of these combos is pretty good when you dig 7.

If DTT had the same mana cost I'd say it is clearly better. Being UU at least will probably keep it out of triple color decks but in dual color it might still be better than Treasure Cruise. Maybe instead of playing 4 Treasure Cruise running a split of 3 Treasure Cruise and 1-2 Dig Through Time produces better results.

[maharis]

There are definitely some "obscure cards with latent potential" if Treasure Cruise becomes a real thing.

I could see this putting Dryad Militant over the top. It already makes life hard on:

Deathrite Shaman
Punishing Fire
Cabal Therapy
Dread Return
Snapcaster Mage
Lingering Souls
Grim Lavamancer
Tarmogoyf
Life from the Loam
Nimble Mongoose
Past in Flames

It's weak against Miracles and Elves, though. Luckily, it's in the same colors as Gaddock Teeg. I also think Treasure Cruise's presence answers the question of why Spirit of the Labyrinth was in Theros block.

Of course, the real question is how the Spirit/Militant/Teeg deck beats True-Name Nemesis.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

How does DM help against PFire? It just gets killed and if Pfire already is in the GY, it does nothing.

[maharis]

How does DM help against PFire? It just gets killed and if Pfire already is in the GY, it does nothing.

"if an instant or sorcery card deals lethal damage to Dryad Militant, Dryad Militant will remain on the battlefield until the next time state-based actions are checked, which is after the instant or sorcery finishes resolving. The instant or sorcery will be exiled."

That and you could have Mom, or equipment, or it could be dredged/discarded there.

[btm10]

If DTT had the same mana cost I'd say it is clearly better. Being UU at least will probably keep it out of triple color decks but in dual color it might still be better than Treasure Cruise. Maybe instead of playing 4 Treasure Cruise running a split of 3 Treasure Cruise and 1-2 Dig Through Time produces better results.

UU really isn't a problem for BUG (or *blade, I'd guess) - BUG Control and Shardless already run Jace and Liliana, and Delver/Team America runs either TNN or Liliana. Blade decks run Lili and Jace (as well as Counterspell).


I gave treasure cruise some brief testing in Deathblade. It was the nuts. It basically turned the deck into shardless BUG but without having to play bad cards, or not play good 1-2cmc cards. I think people are right: Dig in draw-go control and slow combo. Cruise in redundant tempo/midrange decks. I am still skeptical about these cards being 4 ofs. 3 seemed perfect for cruise, but I will try 4 as well. I don't think Dig should be a 4 of though.

I don't think decks necessarily need to be Draw-Go or Combo to run Dig - I've been testing it in BUG Control where I've been very happy with Dig and (preliminarily) prefer it to Cruise. I've always been sort of let down by Visions in Shardless because sometimes you just draw dead cards like Abrupt Decay on an empty board, Hymn against a hellbent opponent, or more Ancestral Visions. The selectivity that Dig provides more than makes up for the additional 1 mana and 1 fewer card, and unlike TC it clears more chaff off of the top. I think that in an even slightly-grindy deck I'd rather have Dig because of the card quality issue.

[Megadeus]

There are definitely some "obscure cards with latent potential" if Treasure Cruise becomes a real thing.

I could see this putting Dryad Militant over the top. It already makes life hard on:

Deathrite Shaman
Punishing Fire
Cabal Therapy
Dread Return
Snapcaster Mage
Lingering Souls
Grim Lavamancer
Tarmogoyf
Life from the Loam
Nimble Mongoose
Past in Flames

It's weak against Miracles and Elves, though. Luckily, it's in the same colors as Gaddock Teeg. I also think Treasure Cruise's presence answers the question of why Spirit of the Labyrinth was in Theros block.

Of course, the real question is how the Spirit/Militant/Teeg deck beats True-Name Nemesis.
mom helps you walk past TNNs fwiw.

[nedleeds]

I'm more interested how we effectively combat these cards in the MD, as they might become the next big thing.

Spirit of the Labyrinthh can stop the card draw of TC, but not Dig. DRS (and Scavenging Ooze) can deny them some Delve food. Papa Teeg just gives them the finger in general.

SB options are GY hate or REB/Pyroblast. Countering the cards after them emptying their GY could hurt them to some extend.

Any %'s you gain by playing hate cards and not playing the unmulligan'ing effects of the blue cantrips are probably not worth it over 8+ rounds. You'll get 2 bad unfixable hands and lose twice while your blue cantripping opponents fix their bad opens and continue the blue love in. If enough people play junk hate somebody will bust through but similar to chalice decks not enough of the field plays them to dent top 8's because of the internal inconsistency over a long event.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

How good of a standard or modern deck could be built around Steam Augury and Treasure Cruise?

[Barook]

Of course, the real question is how the Spirit/Militant/Teeg deck beats True-Name Nemesis.
I think Terminus is the way bigger problem here, since they will find a way to get rid of Teeg otherwise.

SFM/SoFaI and the DD combo with KotR back-up seem like viable choices to fight TNN.

Edit: Also, Council's Judgment.

[FoolofaTook]

It's weak against Miracles and Elves, though. Luckily, it's in the same colors as Gaddock Teeg. I also think Treasure Cruise's presence answers the question of why Spirit of the Labyrinth was in Theros block.

Of course, the real question is how the Spirit/Militant/Teeg deck beats True-Name Nemesis.

A Junk shell supports all 3 critters and also gives access to LotV and Golgari Charm main list. You just don't use the -1/-1 option on charm with a hate bear out unless you have no choice, as in a Jitte or SoFI is being equipped on TNN or the game state demands it for other reasons. SB options that do not hit your 1 toughness hate bears include Marsh Casualties and Zealous Persecution. If you're playing Dark Confidant main list for card advantage then you can also probably justify a couple of Innocent Blood in the main list.

[bruizar]

How does Snapcaster mage interact with Dig Through Time? Can you exile Dig Through Time by delving it for itself?

[Bed Decks Palyer]

How does Snapcaster mage interact with Dig Through Time? Can you exile Dig Through Time by delving it for itself?

Delve pays for the spell, so I guess it's possible... Cdr?

[Zombie]

It's not. The card goes to the stack on announcement, far before costs are paid.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

Does Snapcaster Mage work with Delve at all?

As far as I know the flashback costs is the casting cost printed on the card. When you snap back a Force of Will you can't cast it for free removing a blue card and a life either.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Does Snapcaster Mage work with Delve at all?

As far as I know the flashback costs is the casting cost printed on the card. When you snap back a Force of Will you can't cast it for free removing a blue card and a life either.

But Force has an "instead of blah blah..." clause, it's the alternative way how to cast the spell. Delve pays for the spell. Thats why I'd love to read judge's/WotC words...

"9/20/2014 Because delve isn’t an alternative cost, it can be used in conjunction with alternative costs."
Do I get it right? Flashback says "pay :10::u::u: to play the card" and as such, you must pay those :10::u::u: (or w/e the price of DTT), true?

[bruizar]

So, bare with me on this flirt of speculation..

Let's say Treasure Cruise becomes dominant in the format. And let's say Dig through Time becomes a necessity to compete in the format too.

Any chance of Mana Drain getting unbanned? :D

[FoolofaTook]

So, bare with me on this flirt of speculation..

Let's say Treasure Cruise becomes dominant in the format. And let's say Dig through Time becomes a necessity to compete in the format too.

Any chance of Mana Drain getting unbanned? :D

Why would they do this?

If TC becomes a staple and DTT becomes necessary in blue control they'd more likely print ways to hose them than enhance them.

They've been trying to hose Goyf unsuccessfully for nearly a year now. Not sure what they're going to come up with next but they clearly don't like a creature required for play approaching $200 a copy.

[Lemnear]

So, bare with me on this flirt of speculation..

Let's say Treasure Cruise becomes dominant in the format. And let's say Dig through Time becomes a necessity to compete in the format too.

Any chance of Mana Drain getting unbanned? :D

Didn't we have had that topic covered a million times in the B&R thread? It's oppressive and expensive. I neither want to see the format degenerate into Delve + Mana Drain mirrors which is what would happen. Counter your Treasure Cruise with Mana Drain and use the Mana too feed my own TC to draw into the next Drain. Fun?

[TsumiBand]

The thing to keep in mind with casting spells, abilities, etc -- basically anything that would go on the stack -- is that the very first thing that happens is that the thing actually goes onto the stack. Costs are paid after modes and targets and alternative costs have been determined (and if it's determined at that point that you never could cast the spell, the game treats this as an illegal action (rule 717) and the game rewinds to just before the illegal thing happened).

A spell can never be used to pay its own Delve cost because, even though most players act things out in "tap mana, play spell, response?" order, the game more or less works as "put thing on stack, set targets/modes, determine costs, pay those costs, spell is officially cast, response?"

[Finn]

More on Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time:

Luis Scott Vargas apparently does not think much of these cards.
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/luis-scott-vargas/khans-of-tarkir-constructed-review-jeskai-and-blue/

Glenn Jones over at Starcity wants to try the card, but his take is Modern and it is in Dredge. My guess is that this card is too slow for Dredge in Legacy. If you have the right cantrips, you can cast it turn 3 usually, or turn 4 if you had to react to an opponent and use mana for it. You should then be able to cast the second on about turn 6 or 7 depending on what you are reacting to. I like the card best in 2 color Burn, Show and Tell, or one of the Mystic decks. Anyway, here is his article.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29389_On-A-Boat-In-Modern.html

Speaking of SCG, two days ago Kent Ketter referenced his BUG deck from 9/10 without a word about Treasure Cruise in this article.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29396_Standard-Modern-Legacy-Decks-For-All-Occasions.html



These cards, Treasure Cruise in particular, are seriously under the radar. They are legal starting today. My advice: Get out and get some free wins this weekend before folks figure it out. I am tempted to put a deck list here, but I have not tested it properly. Good luck, mates.

[Lemnear]

More on Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time:

Luis Scott Vargas apparently does not think much of these cards.
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/luis-scott-vargas/khans-of-tarkir-constructed-review-jeskai-and-blue/

Glenn Jones over at Starcity wants to try the card, but his take is Modern and it is in Dredge. My guess is that this card is too slow for Dredge in Legacy. If you have the right cantrips, you can cast it turn 3 usually, or turn 4 if you had to react to an opponent and use mana for it. You should then be able to cast the second on about turn 6 or 7 depending on what you are reacting to. I like the card best in 2 color Burn, Show and Tell, or one of the Mystic decks. Anyway, here is his article.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29389_On-A-Boat-In-Modern.html

Speaking of SCG, two days ago Kent Ketter referenced his BUG deck from 9/10 without a word about Treasure Cruise in this article.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29396_Standard-Modern-Legacy-Decks-For-All-Occasions.html



These cards, Treasure Cruise in particular, are seriously under the radar. They are legal starting today. My advice: Get out and get some free wins this weekend before folks figure it out. I am tempted to put a deck list here, but I have not tested it properly. Good luck, mates.

All it tells ME is that there is some arrogance spread among those "pro writers". If it is not a mythic, it's not worth the Hype on SCGs page to sell those for a premium

[Dragonslayer_90]

These cards, Treasure Cruise in particular, are seriously under the radar. They are legal starting today. My advice: Get out and get some free wins this weekend before folks figure it out. I am tempted to put a deck list here, but I have not tested it properly. Good luck, mates.

Makes me sad that I'm too swamped with school work to go and attempt to spike a tournament during the first weekend TC is legal. Stupid real life!:cry: Oh well, I have at least been urging my friends going to Indy this weekend that if they are playing a Delver deck, you best be playing Treasure Cruise in your deck. Good luck to anyone else playing at Indy or Edison this weekend.

[rufus]

Does Snapcaster Mage work with Delve at all?

It should - the same way that Delve interacts with trinisphere. Delve is a way to pay the cost (effective in 601.2g), independent of alternative costs (601.2b).

[Quizzlemanizzle]

More on Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time:

Luis Scott Vargas apparently does not think much of these cards.
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/luis-scott-vargas/khans-of-tarkir-constructed-review-jeskai-and-blue/

Glenn Jones over at Starcity wants to try the card, but his take is Modern and it is in Dredge. My guess is that this card is too slow for Dredge in Legacy. If you have the right cantrips, you can cast it turn 3 usually, or turn 4 if you had to react to an opponent and use mana for it. You should then be able to cast the second on about turn 6 or 7 depending on what you are reacting to. I like the card best in 2 color Burn, Show and Tell, or one of the Mystic decks. Anyway, here is his article.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29389_On-A-Boat-In-Modern.html

Speaking of SCG, two days ago Kent Ketter referenced his BUG deck from 9/10 without a word about Treasure Cruise in this article.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29396_Standard-Modern-Legacy-Decks-For-All-Occasions.html



These cards, Treasure Cruise in particular, are seriously under the radar. They are legal starting today. My advice: Get out and get some free wins this weekend before folks figure it out. I am tempted to put a deck list here, but I have not tested it properly. Good luck, mates.

None of these "pros" are active in the legacy scene or am I wrong?

I mean LSV doesn't really play much anymore anyway, I don't know when I last saw him play legacy.

[FoolofaTook]

The LSV articles appear to be written mainly from the standpoint of Standard.

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.

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.

3. How many assets in your list are weakened by the inclusion of several delve cards that are then played?

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?

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?

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.

[Zllig]

Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are absolutely insane. Played with them and against them last night and they were always insane, can't even begin to image how good these cards would be if they cost any less.

[Vicar in a tutu]

I posted a comment beneath LSVs article about Jeskai / blue, asking if all the evaluations were done with standard in mind. I didn't get an answer.

[Lormador]

I find this card rating to be pretty suspicious.

He names Judge's Familiar a "multi-format all-star" in the same sentence as Jace, Tarmogoyf, and Snapcaster Mage... at a full point above Thoughtseize.

[Vicar in a tutu]

I find this card rating to be pretty suspicious.

He names Judge's Familiar a "multi-format all-star" in the same sentence as Jace, Tarmogoyf, and Snapcaster Mage... at a full point above Thoughtseize.
That's supposed to be a joke. LSV knows how much people debate and argue over his ratings, sometimes he trolls the readers.

[Holly]

+ the Familiar did win 2 (or even more?) Pro Tours..

[mishima_kazuya]

All it tells ME is that there is some arrogance spread among those "pro writers". If it is not a mythic, it's not worth the Hype on SCGs page to sell those for a premium

Pro stretching it very far regarding Glenn Jones and Kent Ketter.

[Lemnear]

Pro stretching it very far regarding Glenn Jones and Kent Ketter.

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....

[Undomian]

http://i.imgur.com/2pY23PE.png

Well, shit.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

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....
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.


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.

Agreed.


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.


You criterion is fine, your conclusion really isn't.

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"?



3. How many assets in your list are weakened by the inclusion of several delve cards that are then played?


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.



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?


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.



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?

True and yes, yes it is.



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.

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.

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).

[Finn]

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.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

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.

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.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

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...

[Nihilis]

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.

[FoolofaTook]

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 cost :u: unconditionally 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.

[HSCK]

UR Delver with 4 Treasure Cruise into the top 4 right now.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

UR Delver with 4 Treasure Cruise into the top 4 right now.

Go go Bob!

[nitewolf9]

Annnnd the cat's outta the bag.

Nice work, Bob.

[wcm8]

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.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Wow, sick finals. First time I've seen a Grisel get raced straight up by tiny creatures. Nice. Job. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

[Meekrab]

Damn. I was hoping there would be a few weeks before people would catch on to how good this card is.
Some of us knew the instant the blurry spoiler image hit the internet. ;)

[HSCK]

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.

[BoiledDenim]

I like that you can tap City of Traitors for 2, play a land, sac City, then use the City to feed delve....

[ivanpei]

Uh, okay. And some of us knew a short time later when we saw it for the first time and it essentially said draw three cards for U.

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.

[LOLWut]

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/54825650.jpg

[Quizzlemanizzle]

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.

Think UR is by far the best shell for it, so I am not surprised.

[bruizar]

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.

Well I already bought out the cheap ones (<10€) :-).

[ivanpei]

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/54825650.jpg

Time to crack out the Chalice of the Voids and Blood Moons. Best time for Prison decks to make a come back.

But seriously Blue is so OP in legacy, it's pretty much which a Brainstorm deck one should play. But I like it that way since Brainstorm is such a skill intensive card. It's like how most Vintage decks are blue since Recall, Time Walk, tinker and friends are blue.

[Zombie]

Yay Brainstorm bingo again!

[datanaga]

Well I already bought out the cheap ones (<10€) :-).

I preordered foil playset of TC from my local store when I have seen the card for the first time and price was 3$/foil playset:)
Same for foil playset of hooting mandrills which should prove its powerlevel next:)

[Wanderlust]

While we're over here complaining that the sky is falling with blue dominance, 6 of the top 8 decks at SCG Indy Legacy today (260 players) didn't contain any blue at all. I don't think the end times have come quite yet.

[lyracian]

While we're over here complaining that the sky is falling with blue dominance, 6 of the top 8 decks at SCG Indy Legacy today (260 players) didn't contain any blue at all.

Clearly time to ban Elves; they are making Blue look bad!

[Dice_Box]

Going to take back what I have said about these two cards. Massive day of play testing, including that deck that won SCG. Yea, blue gets all the toys and these ones are fun.

[ivanpei]

Just play tested UWR Delver with Cruises against BUG Shardless. Still got crushed like 6-3. The games I won were due to drawing all 4 wastelands for the mana screw win or managing to stick a batterskull/TNN and riding it for the win.

The sky isn't falling lol, losing to overwhelming card advantage decks like BUG still happens. Treasure cruise felt very powerful every time I casted it. Played 3 copies and never had trouble casting them. Always felt like I wanted more copies against BUG.

May still stick to just 3 because you don't really want to see too many early. I managed to cast 2 copies multiple times easily. The card is just sick in Delver but may not be that playable in other decks.

[Lemnear]

Just one question: which dumbass at WotC thought that Legacy's Delver + Cantrip/Fetch-Galore would need an Ancestral Recall Clone because "those decks are soooo underpowered"?

I ever feared the day Tempo gets access to actual cardadvantage. At this point they could have unbanned Gush for a similar trauma for the Legacy Metagame. People of the world, Mainboard your Pyroblasts!

[Dice_Box]

Pyro's? Hell no, why do you think I own Alpha REB's? I would run them over Pyro in a heartbeat...

Also if this does become a thing, guys, please, play more Painter.

[MaximumC]

Just one question: which dumbass at WotC thought that Legacy's Delver + Cantrip/Fetch-Galore would need an Ancestral Recall Clone because "those decks are soooo underpowered"?


It's not quite that simple. Look at how controversial the card was in this very thread. To be fair, however, almost no one was saying the card was BAD, they were just debating whether it was true competition with other cards like Brainstorm. That's a pretty elite crowd of Blue draw spells to be rubbing elbows with.

The other side of the camp were those arguing that none of the card's drawbacks really mattered, and it was incredibly powerful. I'll take a moment to toot my own horn and link to my analysis on the card in that vein:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28068-Khans-of-Tarkir&p=834866&viewfull=1#post834866

I think those still on the fence need to think about the raw power of drawing three cards. How often do you win when you mull to five? How do you feel when your opponent is on seven and you're on five? Resolving Ancestral is kind of like that. Concentrate and Jace's Ingenuity and those kind of cards are fine and offer a good effect, but they cost so much that you won't ever get there in Legacy. Or, if you do, you have to Timewalk yourself to take advantage of it. This card, when you get it cast for 2U or less, works kind of like Time Spiral; you've recharged, and you get the first chance to act on the new cards you drew.

These cards will lead to blowouts due to variance, sure, but most of the time they will be absolute haymakers and so you will play them if you want to win in a blue deck that plans to put anything in the yard.

[rufus]

What, no hate for how OP Monestary Swiftspear is? Khans looks like a much more potent set than the ones we've had in recent memory, and the delve monsters are just less subtle than some of the other stuff.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

It's an actual playable red card, we should hold a celebratory BBQ next week in honor of it

[bruizar]

Need to alter mine into Treasure Bruize

[MaximumC]

What, no hate for how OP Monestary Swiftspear is? Khans looks like a much more potent set than the ones we've had in recent memory, and the delve monsters are just less subtle than some of the other stuff.

This still seems like a more on-curve and less vulnerable version of that 1R Elemental from Zendikar that got +3/+0 when you cast a spell. That creature saw some experimenting as well. I'm thinking Spear has a home in certain aggressive lists, but it's nowhere near Treasure Cruise in terms of power.

[nedleeds]

It's an actual playable red card, we should hold a celebratory BBQ next week in honor of it

Pretty sure it's a blue card. It's the brothers cantrip that make it playable. The brainstorm, ponder, gitaxian proburbation is what makes her playable (haste helps also as you can sandbag her for an alpha strike).

[Ellomdian]

While we're over here complaining that the sky is falling with blue dominance, 6 of the top 8 decks at SCG Indy Legacy today (260 players) didn't contain any blue at all. I don't think the end times have come quite yet.

But, Indy wasn't the one on the TV! Surely an event that 'allowed' 2 Dredge Decks and a Reanimator list to make the T8 had sufficient incidental GY hate, and the absence of Elves or Infect doesn't indicate that people were loaded for bear against those strategies...

[Meekrab]

Uh, okay. And some of us knew a short time later when we saw it for the first time and it essentially said draw three cards for U.


Edit - I can't tell tone very well from reading words. If you meant it as "I'm cooler than you because I saw the card a day and a half before you did" then whatever, go ahead and think you're cool because you probably need something like this to make you feel better about yourself. Otherwise :laugh:
Nah I just meant that it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that Ancestral Recall is still kinda good as a Sorcery. :D

[phonics]

Just one question: which dumbass at WotC thought that Legacy's Delver + Cantrip/Fetch-Galore would need an Ancestral Recall Clone because "those decks are soooo underpowered"?

Honestly after all the silly (mostly blue) stuff that they have printed recently I am not surprised. People better watch out for the second coming of Great Sable Stag to redefine the meta.

[Undomian]

Honestly after all the silly (mostly blue) stuff that they have printed recently I am not surprised. People better watch out for the second coming of Great Sable Stag to redefine the meta.

Nonsense, we'll only need that for the second coming of Dredge. :rolleyes:

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Pretty sure it's a blue card. It's the brothers cantrip that make it playable. The brainstorm, ponder, gitaxian proburbation is what makes her playable (haste helps also as you can sandbag her for an alpha strike).

Look at this point playable cards that don't have a blue symbol is all I'm asking for

[bruizar]

Look at this point playable cards that don't have a blue symbol is all I'm asking for

colorblindness helps

[TsumiBand]

lol @ Monestary Swiftspear secretly being Blue. That good archetypes absorb good cards despite their color is a Real Thing, but in the case of this guy, it isn't as linear as "spells make it big, good spells are blue, ergo it is blue". It isn't exactly a threat you try to protect, after all; it isn't like resolving Goyf and then sticking it, it's more like a Kiln Field or any given effect that gives your burn spells more damage/more reach.

Whether or not Blue cards would fit into such a deck is not relevant; the card isn't masquerading as a Red card, it's most assuredly Red and supporting it with Blue is beyond the point. It pairs better with Red aggressive strategies, it doesn't exactly age well with the game-state (it doesn't improve after early turns), it demands a lot of fuel and it doesn't really save anyone's bacon to topdeck it.

Like, if it were actually secretly Blue, then you could argue for its existence in a deck like BUG Delver or whatever. I doubt that effect is even desirable in such a deck, whether or not it were in those colors. Meanwhile, you can take a card like Snapcaster Mage (which is often accused of being a Red card one casts with Islands) and seeing just how easily any burn-heavy Sligh deck would freak out over a Red version of that guy.

[Gheizen64]

Pretty sure it's a blue card. It's the brothers cantrip that make it playable. The brainstorm, ponder, gitaxian proburbation is what makes her playable (haste helps also as you can sandbag her for an alpha strike).

That's false because differently from Goif, it'd be better if u could actually pitch it to force. Making Goyf pitchable on the other hand would make it worse because ppl would pitch him in situations where 99% of the time you shouldn't.

Swiftspear is definitely red in that regard. Now we just need playable cantrips in non-blue colors. Blue get the manipulation + cantrip spells, why other colors can't get like: "R: instant: discard a card at random, if u do draw two cards" or "B, instant: remove target 2 cards from a grave, draw a card", "G: instant: target creature get +1+1, draw a card" etc... you don't need to move card-drawing in other colors, cantrip are perfectly ok in every color.

I mean, White got Defiant Strike there's no reason why we can't get something similar (and playable plz) in other colors.

[Barook]

I mean, White got Defiant Strike there's no reason why we can't get something similar (and playable plz) in other colors.
Julian recently made a good point on his stream about Gitaxian Probe in Elves - mere cantrips actually increase variance instead of reducing it since it makes opening hands more sketchy, among other things.

Mere cantripping doesn't solve the issue that plue has superior card selection.

I like Swiftspear. It's what a red aggro card should be, unlike the blue abomination Delver.

[Gheizen64]

Then scry 1. What i'm saying is that you can decrease variance in other colors without using straight draw that blue has. Like, something like magma jet, or explore, but better (magma jet for R and sorcery for example, or explore for G but works only with basics). Just for example's sake, would it have hurt standard so much to print some good B and G delve cards? Like 3G, Sorcery, Delve: search your library for a basic land and put it into play. Or XB, Instant, Delve: exile X cards from a graveyard, draw a card? Instead we got an XXBBBB spell that make zombie tokens jesus and blue that ancestral recall lolz.

[rufus]

...would it have hurt standard so much to print some good B and G delve cards? Like 3G, Sorcery, Delve: search your library for a basic land and put it into play. Or XB, Instant, Delve: exile X cards from a graveyard, draw a card? Instead we got an XXBBBB spell that make zombie tokens jesus and blue that ancestral recall lolz.

You mean cards like Murderous Cut or Hooting Mandrills? Those are both quite good, it's just Treasure Cruise gross.

[FoolofaTook]

Julian recently made a good point on his stream about Gitaxian Probe in Elves - mere cantrips actually increase variance instead of reducing it since it makes opening hands more sketchy, among other things.

Mere cantripping doesn't solve the issue that plue has superior card selection.

I like Swiftspear. It's what a red aggro card should be, unlike the blue abomination Delver.

If Swiftspear was Delver power level it would land as a 1/2 with haste but no evasion and then flip to a 3/2 if you revealed an instant or sorcery on your upkeep.

Think about that for a second and then think about how grossly out of curve the Delver is.

[Finn]

In my testing with Swiftspear, I often do not hit for more than 1 on the turn I plop it down. But then I can usually hit for 3 on turn 2 and another 3 or 4 on turn 3. It sure as hell shines in the same shell as TC. In fact, after gumshoing with Sneak/Show, Uwr, Uw, and Ur Delver/Burn, I think that Huang's deck is pretty close to what I would play. I like Fireblast in my main as the only major change.

I will say this for TC. It makes subtle demands on your deck that we have not really contended with in the past. The added need for even more cantrips kinda takes you out of three colors. Black can sorta keep up with this, but your threat density still remains low. My next attempt will be to find something in U/b or possibly Ubw. I'm thinking Lingering Souls.

[MaximumC]

In my testing with Swiftspear, I often do not hit for more than 1 on the turn I plop it down. But then I can usually hit for 3 on turn 2 and another 3 or 4 on turn 3. It sure as hell shines in the same shell as TC. In fact, after gumshoing with Sneak/Show, Uwr, Uw, and Ur Delver/Burn, I think that Huang's deck is pretty close to what I would play. I like Fireblast in my main as the only major change.

I will say this for TC. It makes subtle demands on your deck that we have not really contended with in the past. The added need for even more cantrips kinda takes you out of three colors. Black can sorta keep up with this, but your threat density still remains low. My next attempt will be to find something in U/b or possibly Ubw. I'm thinking Lingering Souls.

If this becomes the norm, look for an increase in the price of Pyrostatic Pillar and the Pyrostatic Pillar with legs we got in Theros. Sure, cantrip away boss.