So, there seems to be some amount of excitement about Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, with some considering him the best Legendary of the cycle. Seeing how he is very similar, arguably worse, than Rafiq of the Many, how do you think that will affect the playability of Rafiq?
In my eye, the main reason Rafiq isn't getting more play up to now is because he's widely complained of. And with the commentary about Shu Yun, you'd almost think that people have forgotten that we've seen double-strike in the Command Zone before, then encouraged people stop playing it. So which one will it be? Will people learn to tolerate Rafiq, or will people start complaining of Shu Yun?
I still see plenty of Rafiq, and people are less excited about Shu Yun, from my observation, than they are of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Tasigur, Golden Fang. I only like him because UWR's options outside of Narset are so bleh.
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I think Rafiq will usually be the better choice between the two. He has better color access with green, which makes all the difference.
I've also never seen Rafiq complained of that much. The whole plan to swing in with a guy loses steam in multiplayer. Is he considered competitive in French?
Shu Yun still requires a significant mana input every turn. He also requires more work to become Rafiq levels of power, and isn't as consistent. This combined means that Shu Yun, while capable, isn't as strong as Rafiq, and therefore won't be a true replacement, meaning Rafiq is still very much a top dog and therefore a target.
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Eh, I wouldn't put too much stock in that sort of article. The people who read that probably aren't the type of people to go for t5 wins with rafiq anyways, and the ones who do won't care that somebody they don't know considers their deck unfair.
Shu Yun will appeal to players that like casting tons of spells more than Rafiq. I'm not sure those players are the ones currently playing Rafiq. Most good Rafiq decks don't really cast a ton of spells in my experience.
When I think about it, I couldn't even find proper duel deck for him, also not so much multi decks.
There are definitelly more decks made for Alesha or Tasigur, than for Shu Yun. But I htink he can be very nice and I prefer R over G..
Rafiq dropped in popularity mostly because Derevi, Empyrial Tactician and Roon of the Hidden Realm were printed and took a lot of the Bant players with them. Rafiq is also 6+ years old and predates all the Commander product generals putting at a big disadvantage popularity-wise (where Roon and Derevi are only a little over a year old). I think that as so many good options have been printed since the release of Rafiq that he will fall in popularity like every other commander.
I think Shu Yun will see a lot of play because its so much better than all the other RWU options.
Shu Yun does nothing directly to the popularity of Rafiq. Sure, you can make a deck designed to get in there with general damage for the win with both of them, but they're in different color combinations and are likely to use different builds.
Indirectly, some people don't have the card pool to build many decks, and so if they want to build Shu Yun, they have to take apart Rafiq. But that set of players is people who (A) already have Rafiq, (B) want Shu Yun, and (C) don't have the money/cards to build Shu Yun without removing white/blue cards from Rafiq. As opposed to, say, Derevi, who can take Rafiq's mana base wholesale and probably a good portion of the spells as well. (I know when I took apart Zedruu to build Narset, I kept something like 75 cards from the original deck.)
I don't think he should be played as straight-up Voltron, he's more unique in that he easily enables double strike on creatures. I think you should run him with creatures that benefit from multiple damage instances (Medomai the Ageless, Balefire Dragon, Daxos, Augury Adept, Lu Xun, Thada Adel, etc) and have some Voltron elements as a back-up.
At his very best you use extra combat phase guys (Aurelia, Aggravated Assault, etc) and Medomai to take 4+ extra turns. At his very worst he's usually a 4/3 (or better) for 3 with double strike.
I slapped this together but it hasn't been tested.
Except, Rafiq gives double-strike to other creatures as well. Only, he just gives it to one, and I'm not sure you'd be able to trigger Shu Yun more than once anyway due to mana.
The two creatures are just so remarkably similar, with Rafiq being clearly better, that I was wondering if anyone not playing Rafiq specifically due to high power level would be interested in Shu Yun. Or in other words, how likely is someone to complain and consider my theoretical Shu Yun deck unfair?
colors - green has more Giant Growth effects which can still be good but red has extra combats which can be much more backbreaking in my mind because you are taking that double strike and hitting more times with it per trigger. This means swords and on hit effects happen more often. Red also has additional equipment support that green does not have. Green is an overall better color but when coming down to tricks and equipment I think red potentially works better for specific things.
Outside of colors, I have to agree that in general its likely that Rafiq is a superior effect. He cant scale to multiple targets per turn but generally speaking its hard to do that with Shu Yun anyways. UWR is a fun color scheme though and it plays well on Shu Yun's abilities. To some degree it might just be that Shu Yun looks fun and new. Is he better? Probably not.
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Yeah, and there is also the issue of possibly drawing badly and/or running out of steam with Shu Yun. Whereas if I draw one Rancor with Rafiq, that's a two-turn clock against any one player, unblocked, for as long as Rancor doesn't get killed. You can certainly build Rafiq more spell-heavy and with only 6-7 effects that give +2 power, and it would look like a Shu Yun that had 2 extra mana and could run Instants better.
The question, in which spot would someone think you were just drawing well and which would they begrudge you for playing a strong deck?
I think other Bant and Voltron generals have more to do with Rafiq's decline than any kind of social pressure. Rafiq was new when EDH first caught on, but think about some of the things that have been printed since: Uril, the Miststalker, Thrun, the Last Troll, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Roon of the Hidden Realm, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. All of these cards took bites out of Rafiq's share of the collective meta, which gives the appearance he's fallen out of favor; he was really just overutilized early on because he was available and one of a small handful of Bant generals.
Shun Yu is overhyped. He'll be around, but I see him primarily as a tiny leader. Patriot and Voltron both have better options, so it's not like he's going to blow the format open. I expect Bananas to make a bigger impact.
I'd use Shun Yu over zedruu the greathearted simply because at this point Shun doesn't have a rep attached (at least that I can tell) to it, with Zed you automatically think bad stuff is going to be donated,and so IMO depending on your meta and playgroup due to Zed's rep you may get targeted right from the start.
As others have stated, Shu Yun certainly does not preclude Rafiq. Both of these generals will have vastly different play styles.
When I opened him in my seeded pack I immediately went to building a voltron deck with him at the helm, but found it quite slow and cumbersome. I think he'll shine best as an enabler for awful things - like extra turns, more combat steps and just downright shenanigans.
Plus, he's a hell of a lot cooler than Goatlady (imo) and not as liable to be hated off the table as Narset.
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I've taken FunnyBob's RU spellsling frame and added some cheap white cantrips. It is just awsome and fast. I still need to get more games in, but Shu Yun is not at all the same kind of game as Raffy. He tends to push you in a storm/spellsling/voltron kinda thing. Raffy is just bant goodstuff with a red zone.
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In my eye, the main reason Rafiq isn't getting more play up to now is because he's widely complained of. And with the commentary about Shu Yun, you'd almost think that people have forgotten that we've seen double-strike in the Command Zone before, then encouraged people stop playing it. So which one will it be? Will people learn to tolerate Rafiq, or will people start complaining of Shu Yun?
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I've also never seen Rafiq complained of that much. The whole plan to swing in with a guy loses steam in multiplayer. Is he considered competitive in French?
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28313_A-Fair-Rafiq.html
Although admittedly, I don't have my finger on the pulse of the casual players' taboos as well as I'd like.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Eh, I wouldn't put too much stock in that sort of article. The people who read that probably aren't the type of people to go for t5 wins with rafiq anyways, and the ones who do won't care that somebody they don't know considers their deck unfair.
I do find Shu Yun interesting, though, and may end up building a deck based around him.
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There are definitelly more decks made for Alesha or Tasigur, than for Shu Yun. But I htink he can be very nice and I prefer R over G..
I think Shu Yun will see a lot of play because its so much better than all the other RWU options.
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Indirectly, some people don't have the card pool to build many decks, and so if they want to build Shu Yun, they have to take apart Rafiq. But that set of players is people who (A) already have Rafiq, (B) want Shu Yun, and (C) don't have the money/cards to build Shu Yun without removing white/blue cards from Rafiq. As opposed to, say, Derevi, who can take Rafiq's mana base wholesale and probably a good portion of the spells as well. (I know when I took apart Zedruu to build Narset, I kept something like 75 cards from the original deck.)
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At his very best you use extra combat phase guys (Aurelia, Aggravated Assault, etc) and Medomai to take 4+ extra turns. At his very worst he's usually a 4/3 (or better) for 3 with double strike.
I slapped this together but it hasn't been tested.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/27-01-15-nuy-shu-yun-the-silent-tempest/
The two creatures are just so remarkably similar, with Rafiq being clearly better, that I was wondering if anyone not playing Rafiq specifically due to high power level would be interested in Shu Yun. Or in other words, how likely is someone to complain and consider my theoretical Shu Yun deck unfair?
colors - green has more Giant Growth effects which can still be good but red has extra combats which can be much more backbreaking in my mind because you are taking that double strike and hitting more times with it per trigger. This means swords and on hit effects happen more often. Red also has additional equipment support that green does not have. Green is an overall better color but when coming down to tricks and equipment I think red potentially works better for specific things.
Outside of colors, I have to agree that in general its likely that Rafiq is a superior effect. He cant scale to multiple targets per turn but generally speaking its hard to do that with Shu Yun anyways. UWR is a fun color scheme though and it plays well on Shu Yun's abilities. To some degree it might just be that Shu Yun looks fun and new. Is he better? Probably not.
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The question, in which spot would someone think you were just drawing well and which would they begrudge you for playing a strong deck?
Also on extra combats, Finest Hour. World at War, Waves of Aggression and Aggravated Assault are good, but I love Finest Hour. It's probably more consistent in Red though, yeah, even with tutors.
Shun Yu is overhyped. He'll be around, but I see him primarily as a tiny leader. Patriot and Voltron both have better options, so it's not like he's going to blow the format open. I expect Bananas to make a bigger impact.
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When I opened him in my seeded pack I immediately went to building a voltron deck with him at the helm, but found it quite slow and cumbersome. I think he'll shine best as an enabler for awful things - like extra turns, more combat steps and just downright shenanigans.
Plus, he's a hell of a lot cooler than Goatlady (imo) and not as liable to be hated off the table as Narset.
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Hmm... Rafiq Storm... Yeah, I don't think so. The best I can think of off the top of my head is a Mind's Desire subtheme.
I think that Rafiq is definitely going to remain more ubiquitous as long as GU has such a high ubiquity in the format.