Eldritch Moon spoilers inbound

Honestly, I think it is as simple as looking at the UR Burn/Delver lists from the Cruise era. Look at Chaos Reveler as a Treasure Cruise that sticks around as a 3/4 Prowess creature. There will have to be a fair amount of tweaking, but I would start with Bob Huang's exact deck, swapping the old cruises for the new red ones.

I won't rate the card before I see what it does in action, but just because it also costs 8 mana and has a GY-based cost reduction doesn't automatically mean it's the new TC. Delving accounting for everything, including fetchlands and killed creatures, speeds up the cost reduction immensely. But it also doesn't use up the GY the same way Delve does.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GenghisTom

Although wouldn't it be better if it weren't a horror so you could recast for the ETB trigger?

---

Well, that is most probably the reason why it got that extra Horror creature type! ;) It wouldn't need it for flavor, Devil should be more than scary enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GenghisTom

I think the card is very strong. 3/4 prowess ETB draw 3 with soft delve. 2 of for UR delver for sure

---

Soft delve?? It's more like "Affinity for Instants/Sorceries in Graveyard" or "Affinity for Spell Mastery". :)

The card looks strong, especially the "discard hand, draw three cards"-part. But it has the drawback of having a high casting cost even with up to 4 instants/sorceries in the graveyard. That makes it quite slow, almost TitI-glacier-slow.
Also, graveyard hate like Rest in Peace looks better and better these days.
Also, there's DRS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Finn

Honestly, I think it is as simple as looking at the UR Burn/Delver lists from the Cruise era. Look at Chaos Reveler as a Treasure Cruise that sticks around as a 3/4 Prowess creature. There will have to be a fair amount of tweaking, but I would start with Bob Huang's exact deck, swapping the old cruises for the new red ones.

---

I think that's a good start, but you definitely have to consider that it doesn't count fetch lands which slows down the process. Treasure cruise was a 7U - around 2-3 of that cost was usually paid for by Fetch lands. So the Instants and sorceries needed to cast it were only 4-5, at least 1 less than what is needed for the Reveler and often at least 2 less.

RR is very different from U, even in the best case scenario. The UR Delver deck benefits from being able to play off tight mana because it can fetch basic Island basic Mountain. RR is possible - some people play Fireblast, for example - but if you want to reliably have RR you need the deck to be built differently. Probably slower. Fireblast is a RR card that just wins on the spot for no mana, this is an RR card that gives you a huge advantage but does 0 damage the turn it's cast. I don't think you want that in a Swiftspear deck.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cire

I think you'll need to run probe and manmorph at least with this guy - some "free" instants and sorceries. With those in mind you'll only be casting 5 burn spells prior to casting this guy. So the opponent is at least down to 5 . . .

However, instead of thinking of this guy as a burn spell - think of him as:

RR
Sorcery
Draw 3 cards. . .

The hope should be to cast 5 burn spells, one free-trip, then this guy and draw into your last remaining burn spells.

Unfortunately with that in mind this won't be played till turn 4 at least. But that should give burn some late game staying power if their burn spells were countered or whatever?

---

You forgot the "Discard your hand" part of the spell. If you're going full speed on instant/sorcery, you can also include Land Grant and maybe Edge of Autmn.

Another (probably bad) concept where this guy fits is turbo-cantrip stuff like Jeskai Ascendancy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cire

I think that's a good start, but you definitely have to consider that it doesn't count fetch lands which slows down the process. Treasure cruise was a 7U - around 2-3 of that cost was usually paid for by Fetch lands. So the Instants and sorceries needed to cast it were only 4-5, at least 1 less than what is needed for the Reveler and often at least 2 less.

---

Yes. This is exactly what needs to be resolved. I, for one, always used Faithless Looting with Treasure Cruise. I believe that card is especially valuable with red cruise. Quiet Speculation is then worth a look. But don't get too cute or you invite graveyard hate which is otherwise not especially effective against such a deck (to say nothing about the speed issue). And so on...

Also, this looks like a slower deck. Probably worth trying it with the tit.

Noose Constrictor 1G

Creature - Snake (U)

Reach
Discard a card: ~gets +1/+1 EOT

2/2

Welcome back, Wild Mongrel! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rufus

You forgot the "Discard your hand" part of the spell. If you're going full speed on instant/sorcery, you can also include Land Grant and maybe Edge of Autmn.

---

Yeah, but if you're trying to cast 6 spells as fast as possible what are the chances you have anything left in your hand at that point?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Finn

Yes. This is exactly what needs to be resolved. I, for one, always used Faithless Looting with Treasure Cruise. I believe that card is especially valuable with red cruise. Quiet Speculation is then worth a look. But don't get too cute or you invite graveyard hate which is otherwise not especially effective against such a deck (to say nothing about the speed issue). And so on...

Also, this looks like a slower deck. Probably worth trying it with the tit.

---

Quiet Speculation looks fun, but is probably not worth it - thought scour probably is a better option.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kage

Noose Constrictor 1G

Creature - Snake (U)

Reach
Discard a card: ~gets +1/+1 EOT

2/2

Welcome back, Wild Mongrel! :)

---

I think that's actually better than mongrel, since when was the color change applicable in legacy?

Is there any deck that would like mongrels 5-8?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Finn

Honestly, I think it is as simple as looking at the UR Burn/Delver lists from the Cruise era. Look at Chaos Reveler as a Treasure Cruise that sticks around as a 3/4 Prowess creature. There will have to be a fair amount of tweaking, but I would start with Bob Huang's exact deck, swapping the old cruises for the new red ones.

---

I've tried it a bit:

- you have issues casting it because you have comparatively less instant/sorceries, and RR is an hard cost with that few lands.
- it's relatively slow, doing nothing the turn it come down and costing 3-4 even in best case scenarios
- too many creatures , and lower blue count make force/delver/pyromancer a bit awkward.

I think if you play this, you have to shave a creature or two, probably pyromancers, add another mountain , play only R-based fetches, and maybe shave a force for something like a spell pierce. All of those things make the deck considerably slower though.

And it's still a really awkward card to cast. Cruise could be casted off 2 fetches, 3 intants/sorceries, 1 delver in the grave and 2 lands. This need 6 sorceries/instants in the yard with 2 lands, which is a totally different ballpark of difficulty. I think you actively need grave fillers, mind scour, mental note, or even faithless looting.

Lets say a deck like the following:

2 Reveler
4 Delver
6 "non-spells"

18 Lands

18 Spells (at least 12 should be 1 cmc?)
12 Mental note/faithless looting/Thought scour.

MN/FL put two random cards into your grave. Statistically, at least 1 will be another instant/sorcery. Faithless puts 5 random cards into grave. Statistically, at least 2.5 will be another instant/sorcery. With the draw, let's just assume you will cast at least two of these spells by the beggining of your turn 3 (so one turn 1, and another turn 2). That should give you at least 4 spells in the yard - maybe 7. Still with only 4, that means turn 2, you need to cast at least 1 other spell, and turn 3, you need to cast another spell prior to casting Reveler.

So by the time you cast reveler you would have played the following:

2 Mental note/faithless looting/Thought scour.
3 Lands
2 "spells"

Certainly doable. However, this also means that when you cast Reveler - you will be discarding at least 1 card.

----

Looking at the above we should be wondering if it is worth it :eyebrow:

Edit: Those 18 spells would certaintly include 4 Brainstorm, 4 Gitaxian Probe, and 4 Lightning Bolt. Additionally, since you are in Blue, you will probably play 4 FOW. So the deck at that point is already built. You have 8 empty slots, 2 of which must be instants or sorceries and the others could also be non-creatures. . . but i jsut don't see that deck being . . . you know good.

Perhaps going all in on getting it out is the wrong approach?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cire

...

Perhaps going all in on getting it out is the wrong approach?

---

Maybe this should be a single card discussion or development thread at this point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kage

Noose Constrictor 1G

Creature - Snake (U)

Reach
Discard a card: ~gets +1/+1 EOT

2/2

Welcome back, Wild Mongrel! :)

---

I, for one, welcome our new Delver-intercepting overlords! Mongrels color change hardly matters anymore as black quality removal stopped being racist.

YEah the more I think about that Red Treasure Cruise guy the less I like him. I mean, I like what it *wants* to be, but I think that ultimately it will be a "creature", in the same way that WGD is a "creature" but if it ever finds a final home it will be in a deck that doesn't care about its 'creature-ness' at all, just its ETB. An empty hand is not the hardest thing in the world to play around, and often times it's strictly better to have a huge graveyard. I'm not convinced that it will ever be a Burn or even a Delver tool so much as another link in some vile combo deck somewhere.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cire

I think that's actually better than mongrel, since when was the color change applicable in legacy?

Is there any deck that would like mongrels 5-8?

---

Can you think of any that want Wild Mongrels 1-4?

Blocks Delver though, which is obviously nice. Now all they need to do is reprint Violent Eruption and I can go back to playing the same Standard deck as I did 14 years ago. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cire

Yeah, but if you're trying to cast 6 spells as fast as possible what are the chances you have anything left in your hand at that point?



Quiet Speculation looks fun, but is probably not worth it - thought scour probably is a better option.



I think that's actually better than mongrel, since when was the color change applicable in legacy?

Is there any deck that would like mongrels 5-8?

---

I would but sadly it's an uncommon

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TsumiBand

YEah the more I think about that Red Treasure Cruise guy the less I like him. I mean, I like what it *wants* to be, but I think that ultimately it will be a "creature", in the same way that WGD is a "creature" but if it ever finds a final home it will be in a deck that doesn't care about its 'creature-ness' at all, just its ETB. An empty hand is not the hardest thing in the world to play around, and often times it's strictly better to have a huge graveyard. I'm not convinced that it will ever be a Burn or even a Delver tool so much as another link in some vile combo deck somewhere.

---

The "creature-ness" of Reveler is actually almost a side effect. Pay RR, discard your hand, draw 3 - thats' the meat and potatoes of it. This is a SLIGHTLY better version of Wild Guess / Dangerous Wager. Would people play Dangerous Wager if it said "Draw 3" instead of "Draw 2?"

I mean, people play Painful Truths, so... maybe?

Also, bear in mind that unlike Treasure Cruise, this card can be chained. With Cruise, you usually spent awhile deploying your new cards to refuel for the next one. Here, the cards in your yard don't get chewed up by the Reveler, so you can cast another one immediately if you draw it.

The body seems very relevant to me.

I mean RR for a 3/4 prowess. Sure no goyf, but pretty close!
Look its not like I spend a turn durdling, hey I play a blocker...

Compared to TITI this is actually a great topdeck.

Dev a strong card not sure where and how to play it. In burn it could help vs chalice/cbalance to find fireblast but meh... Slots in delver are so thight...

Maybe just go lol and play it in jund xD

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Di

Blocks Delver though, which is obviously nice. Now all they need to do is reprint Violent Eruption and I can go back to playing the same Standard deck as I did 14 years ago. :)

---

I Like Skylasher if wanted to beat only Delver. xD

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noctalor

4 Volcs
12 fetchs

Done.

---

I'd play at least one Snow-Covered Mountain. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯