MTG Salvation

Enjoyed the M15 review a ton.

I think Generator Servant is going to be the suprise card of the set for a lot of people. I think the hast clause is actually a mental trap for people, because they A) focus on creatures and B) think about all the creatures with haste already. This distracts from discussions of T3 Plow Unders and Kalonian Hydras and swords onto swinging bodies. Acceleration is always difficult to theory craft because it's easy to underestimate the difference it makes when something arrives early. i know we have all had an awesome card in our hand that we just never managed to get out because the board state kept forcing us to do other things.

Aweswome to see two new ones pop up in my queue. Great work fellas.

Do you guys have an RSS feed?

Just for fun, I goldfished the that deck tomchaps posted above as an example of a good Metalworker deck. I drew 20 hands (10 cards + an automatic metalworker) and asked whether the Myr would be better. Myr was the better choice 14/20 times, and this was before considering things like board presense or if ramping into plow under was superior to ramping into Trike (I gave Metalworker every win where it would produce 4+ mana on T4 or 5).

Try it for yourself, or go draft a deck on cubetutor and post it and we'll try it out, and see if we can answer what kind of build really prefers Metalworker.

I still am having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this guy being better than the myr with any consistency. Let's run through the situations:

We all agree it's far worse than the Myr if you have it in your opening hand and no other artifacts.

We all agree it's far worse than the Myr if you want to ramp into non artifacts.

We all agree it's worse than Myr when forced to attack or block.

IWe all agree it's worse than the Myr if you have it in hand with two other artifacts than cost less than 3.

I assume we all agree it's nearly always worse than Myr when topdecked after turn three?

It's better than Myr when Metalworker is in your opening hand and you have either a crazy amount off cheap (but not too cheap) artifacts or two or more expensive artifacts (4+ cost and/or swords).

I find it really difficult to believe that the slight upside of the last situation outweighs the downside of all of the previous ones unless you are really pushing artifact ramp, and thus are running a lot of really high cost targets. I think I would much rather be guaranteed the 2 mana (and be able to use it on walkers and wraths and draw spells), than have to hope a narrow situation so that I can occasionally get 4. Maybe my math or above assumptions are wrong though.

@tomchaps: I can't see the list for some reason, but my first draw had one artifact (a talisman) and it took me seven draws to get to another (a sword). My second opening hand had zero artifacts. I'm sure the card can be crazy, but it's instability in power + fragility are just too much to only support one deck.

We added it for a while, but found it underwhelming. Even in the decks where it is supposed to shine, it just consistently underperformed when compared to straight mana producers or even the 2/2 Myr. Too many things had to go just right for it to be busted.

Maybe if you play in a list with a ton of 5+ cost artifacts? We currently run ten (plus five swords), and they are all fought over.

@Goodking: I run unbalanced color sections as well as unbalanced gold sections. Can I get some sort of hall pass that allows me to be sanctimonious?

I'm very excited to try this guy. Our ramp decks rarely play black though, from what I recall, so we'll see if he sticks.

I think focusing on the fact that a lot of red creatures have haste already is missing the awesomeness that you are getting a 5-6 drop on turn 3-4. Whether it "adds" haste, or it already had it, it still seems sweet to me. Plus, it allows things that you might not immediatly think of, like sword + equip on T3. Having a servicable beater that can turn itself into mana seems super useful, and a cool new direction for red.

@flutterguy: I agree that he doesn't have to be played on T3, but sitting around with three mana up every turn, waiting to not-quite-counter a Titan or some such seems like a poor plan as well.

Cool card, but seems tough to "break" in cube, and you might be falling into the "Oath of Druids" trap (lowering your decks power level to support one card). I could see it finding a home in white weenie maybe? Splashing into red aggro?

I'm a tad higher on him, I think. The first ability is a kind of scry discard mix, which will enable some fun archetypes. Plus, he can get to his ultimate fairly quickly. It's really the middle ability that is suffering thanks to the -3, but going +1 -> bounce -> bounce isn't too shabby either. I think he will miss out due to the cost, but i really like the card design, and want to include him as another discard outlet.

In ramp decks, is he better than Primordial Hydra? We tested him ever so briefly, but he dies so easy, and is chumped all the live long day.

I am also swapping oldmane for him. I love that the lifegain and pump/vigilance ability are both together and on a plus ability. And I love that I can splash him into decks that could have never run Goldmane.