In a closed system Faerie Artisans is an artifact/token generator, an ETB replicator, and a potential combo piece. It's tokens are 'temporary' in that they can be replaced by the next token, but they can also be sacrifice fuel, or made permanent by flickeringFaerie Artisans.
Prior to the legendary rule change, this card would have essentially read: Opponents can't play their commander.
It does nothing when it enters play (unless you cast it with flash), and will continue to do nothing against creature-light/less decks. A resolved Faerie Artisans will also make your opponent second guess playing that Sakura-Tribe Elder, but isn't that also advantageous? Forcing your opponents to make difficult, perhaps sub-optimal choices?
Faerie Artisans seems like a lot of potential value, but with very little guaranteed advantage. Another heavily meta-dependent card. So what do you guys think about it?
At worst it's something to stick a sword on or a flying chumper. At best it's value town. Is the meta it fails in light on creatures? How does that even exist? I would think it's almost a blue staple and more depends on what your deck does to get the most value from it.
It may be situational, but in my games there's usually at least one creature-heavy deck at the table, so I'd say they'll be very rarely bad. I'd love them for my Alesha deck as a constant source of sac fodder, but alas, it's not blue.
Heck... the card is gold against Creature Light decks as well, because the few creatures they DO run are valuable (Consecrated Sphinx, Snapcaster Mage, Azami, insert Titan here).
Go a head, flash that Snapcaster In. I will also get a Snapcaster token and grant something in my yard Flashback too. Or cast Consecrated Sphinx, we will be stuck in a drawing war very quick. LOL.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
As somebody that plays Roon, this card scares me a lot. Its now one of three cards (Faerie Artisans, Torpor Orb and Hushwing Gryff) that make my deck completely unplayable.
It allows us to copy creatures with useful enter the battlefield or activated abilities (Solemn Simulacrum, Sakura-Tribal Elder, Wood Elves, Reclamation Sage). You can also mirror huge bombs like Void Winnower. Faerie Artisans discourages opponents from playing spells like Merciless Executioner. This card can do so much. If our opponent plays an Ashen Rider, and they attempt to exile one of our permanents, we can respond by exiling their Ashen Rider or another one of their permanents. In creature dominate metas, this card is just bonkers. It absolutely shuts down decks like Brago, King Eternal. Faerie Artisans also creates a blocker we can use, and in some instances, a creature we can attack with.
I'm still building my first deck so am FAR from an expert, but it's definitely going in. I'm building a Sydri panharmonicon focused deck which will likely have a lot of sac outlets. Faerie artisans or deepglow skate are probably the two best new cards for my deck.
Glad there's a lot of support for this card! More than anything I wanted to gauge whether my assessment of this card was fair. It reminds me so much of Blade of Selves from Commander 2015, my favourite card from that set.
Pre-ordered several of these when they were listed for $1.50 each, now I see they've jumped up to $4. Not quite as pricey as Deepglow Skate, though I feel that Faerie Artisans is more relevant in a broader range of situations. Deepglow Skate is powerful and will be abused, but it's a one trick pony IMO.
I was super hyped up on this card (at one point I was debating with myself as to whether or not it was the best card in the set), but I am toning it down a little. It's still an amazing card but I was thinking that it could go into every blue deck, and after some thought I realized that it does have some weaknesses.
It will generally act as a kind of "punisher" mechanic in that people will often not throw their big creatures out when this is in play, especially if it has an ETB effect. If I have a terastodon in hand and an opponent has faerie artisan, I will not play it unless that player has no reason to blow up anything on my board, or if I absolutely must play it for whatever reason; the point being that I have the choice to play terastodon or not, compared to something like Void Winnower which literally says I would not be able to cast that Terastodon ever until Winnower is gone. Most people will sandbag certain creatures until they can get the token off. For example, you could play Vorinclex and then immediately follow up with something like Birds of Paradise so the opponent has to exile the Vorinclex token to minimize the impact. There is value in making opponents not play out certain creatures, but it's not really a tangible value and is difficult to measure, which makes it a volatile card in terms of the impact it'll have on the game.
You really want at least one opponent who is very creature heavy so that he's often forced to play creatures into the artisan. If the creature doesn't have an ETB effect, you likely won't evne get value from the token. For example if I play brago into the artisan, it likely won't do anything, as the next creature played will exile the brago token and basically no damage will be done.
If you can flicker the artisan at will then you can choose when to keep a given token, which is a neat trick and can sometimes catch people off guard. You will have to build around it, though it's not like "lolz creatures with ETB effects + flicker dot deck" is a bad deck or anything.
Also, it technically does not immediately impact the board, so it can get killed before any tokens are made, but you can stomach that for just 4 mana.
Basically, to improve Faerie artisan's floor...
1) Ensure that at least one opponent is very creature heavy.
2) Play flicker effects to flicker the artisan and be able to keep a given token (sometimes the flicker effect will also save the artisan from a removal spell).
I preordered about a dozen Faerie Artisans for about a dollar each. I am confident this is going to be a format warping card. If you haven't gotten yours yet, get them now.
I want to respond to a few things IMProgentius mentioned that appear to be pouring cold water on the Faerie Artisans hype train.
It will generally act as a kind of "punisher" mechanic in that people will often not throw their big creatures out when this is in play, especially if it has an ETB effect. If I have a terastodon in hand and an opponent has faerie artisan, I will not play it unless that player has no reason to blow up anything on my board, or if I absolutely must play it for whatever reason
This is an incredibly big deal and is just one of the reasons Faerie Artisans is such a good card. If Jamie is playing Sultai control deck with a Sylvan Library and Phyrexian Arena in play and Taylor refuses to play their Terastodon because of a creature on the battlefield that costs 3U, Jamie is in an excellent position. In this case, Jamie is controlling Taylor and able to keep Terastodon in check without having to hold mana up.
Most people will sandbag certain creatures until they can get the token off. For example, you could play Vorinclex and then immediately follow up with something like Birds of Paradise so the opponent has to exile the Vorinclex token to minimize the impact. There is value in making opponents not play out certain creatures, but it's not really a tangible value and is difficult to measure, which makes it a volatile card in terms of the impact it'll have on the game.
Even in your scenario, the player who plays Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger has to lock down one of their lands just because another player had Faerie Artisans in play. That's a big deal. Plus, the Faerie Artisans might make it to their turn with a free Birds of Paradise. This is the best case scenario for the player who has Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. It is important to keep in mind, there are going to be times where the player with a big creature doesn't have an additional creature they can just sandbag with. For example, the mono green player is in top draw mode and they draw a Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger while another player has Faerie Artisans on the field.
You really want at least one opponent who is very creature heavy so that he's often forced to play creatures into the artisan. If the creature doesn't have an ETB effect, you likely won't evne get value from the token. For example if I play brago into the artisan, it likely won't do anything, as the next creature played will exile the brago token and basically no damage will be done.
This is very common. Most metas are creature based, and new cards that are created, especially in commander sets are creature based. Consider how many decks there are that are creature based or run multiple creatures that Faerie Artisans would love to take advantage of. Think how many white decks play Sun Titan, Reveillark, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Karmic Justice. Think how many red decks play Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Think how many blue decks play Snapcaster Mage. Think how many green decks run Sakura-Tribe Elder. You don't need to play against an Animar deck to get mileage out of Faerie Artisans.
Also, it technically does not immediately impact the board,
That doesn't mean it's not amazing. Many times Oracle of Mul Daya doesn't impact the board right away, but it's still ridiculously powerful. Speaking of Oracle of Mul Daya, one reason that card is so good is because it only requires one colored mana. I can't tell you how many 3 and 5 color decks I've seen play Oracle of Mul Daya on turn 3 or 4 and suddenly run away with the game. Prepare to see the same thing with Faerie Artisans.
As for how powerful it is, I suspect it'll often just prevent your opponents from playing powerful creatures until it eats a removal spell. That's not bad, but it's not necessary great either.
1) Ensure that at least one opponent is very creature heavy.
2) Play flicker effects to flicker the artisan and be able to keep a given token (sometimes the flicker effect will also save the artisan from a removal spell).
You've missed one important outlet here: Sacrifice. Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Claws of Gix, there are so many sacrifice outlets in EDH that slip into decks for other synergies. The Vorinclex/Birds of Paradise scenario you mentioned? What if the Faerie Artisans player has Greater Good out, as many green/blue decks may have? Hell, even having High Market provides an outlet with minimal effect on decks with a stable manabase.
I think it'll see play more in GU, UB, and UR decks where you have sac outlets if nothing else. It looks like a beast with Greater Good. Even in mono-U, you have
Another obvious way around the downside is populate. Or blink effects. But even without that, it can be cute to hit ETB triggers. Take Bane of Progress:
AP's Bane of Progress ETB, BOP's trigger hits the stack.
NAP's Faerie Artisans trigger hits the stack.
Faerie Artisans' ability resolves.
Clone token's ability resolves.
No artifacts or enchantments for the original BOP to destroy, except possibly ones that have persist or undying (i.e., artifact creatures with Mike). Original BOP doesn't destroy anything (except corner cases, i.e. Mike), no +1/+1 counters for original BOP.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I preordered about a dozen Faerie Artisans for about a dollar each. I am confident this is going to be a format warping card. If you haven't gotten yours yet, get them now.
I want to respond to a few things IMProgentius mentioned that appear to be pouring cold water on the Faerie Artisans hype train.
It will generally act as a kind of "punisher" mechanic in that people will often not throw their big creatures out when this is in play, especially if it has an ETB effect. If I have a terastodon in hand and an opponent has faerie artisan, I will not play it unless that player has no reason to blow up anything on my board, or if I absolutely must play it for whatever reason
This is an incredibly big deal and is just one of the reasons Faerie Artisans is such a good card. If Jamie is playing Sultai control deck with a Sylvan Library and Phyrexian Arena in play and Taylor refuses to play their Terastodon because of a creature on the battlefield that costs 3U, Jamie is in an excellent position. In this case, Jamie is controlling Taylor and able to keep Terastodon in check without having to hold mana up.
What I mean by "punisher" mechanic in this context is that the opponent gets to choose whether or not they want to play X creature. Compare that to something like Void Winnower, where the card explicitly says that the opponent can't play Terastodon at all. Here, Taylor gets to choose whether or not he wants to play Terastodon. This is what I mean by more variance in the effect Faerie Artisan has on the board.
For example, let's say we had a hypothetical Faerie Artisan 2 where this version made tokens of the nontoken creatures that ETB'd under your control. This artisan's value is much easier to gauge because you have more control over what creatures to play, compared to the real Faerie Artisan where the opponents have the say on what creature tokens you get.
Again, I did not say that there was no value in making Taylor hesitant on playing certain creatures, but that value is harder to determine than the above examples.
Most people will sandbag certain creatures until they can get the token off. For example, you could play Vorinclex and then immediately follow up with something like Birds of Paradise so the opponent has to exile the Vorinclex token to minimize the impact. There is value in making opponents not play out certain creatures, but it's not really a tangible value and is difficult to measure, which makes it a volatile card in terms of the impact it'll have on the game.
Even in your scenario, the player who plays Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger has to lock down one of their lands just because another player had Faerie Artisans in play. That's a big deal. Plus, the Faerie Artisans might make it to their turn with a free Birds of Paradise. This is the best case scenario for the player who has Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. It is important to keep in mind, there are going to be times where the player with a big creature doesn't have an additional creature they can just sandbag with. For example, the mono green player is in top draw mode and they draw a Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger while another player has Faerie Artisans on the field.
Just tap the land(s) before the opponent makes the vorinclex token.
And yes, sometimes the opponent won't have the birds to immediately follow their vorinclex to exile the vorinclex token, so the vorinclex will get stuck in their hand. And yes, getting a birds token on your turn is still not that bad in some cases. However the point is that faerie artisan has some volatility in its worth.
You really want at least one opponent who is very creature heavy so that he's often forced to play creatures into the artisan. If the creature doesn't have an ETB effect, you likely won't evne get value from the token. For example if I play brago into the artisan, it likely won't do anything, as the next creature played will exile the brago token and basically no damage will be done.
This is very common. Most metas are creature based, and new cards that are created, especially in commander sets are creature based. Consider how many decks there are that are creature based or run multiple creatures that Faerie Artisans would love to take advantage of. Think how many white decks play Sun Titan, Reveillark, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Karmic Justice. Think how many red decks play Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Think how many blue decks play Snapcaster Mage. Think how many green decks run Sakura-Tribe Elder. You don't need to play against an Animar deck to get mileage out of Faerie Artisans.
Faerie artisan is not as good in hypercutthroat metas where games are over in like 4-5 turns and many of the broken decks aren't that heavy on creatures, or have creatures that you can't utilize as well as they do. Doomsday combo, hermit druid, narset, etc.
Also, it technically does not immediately impact the board,
That doesn't mean it's not amazing. Many times Oracle of Mul Daya doesn't impact the board right away, but it's still ridiculously powerful. Speaking of Oracle of Mul Daya, one reason that card is so good is because it only requires one colored mana. I can't tell you how many 3 and 5 color decks I've seen play Oracle of Mul Daya on turn 3 or 4 and suddenly run away with the game. Prepare to see the same thing with Faerie Artisans.
[/quote]
I immediately followed that statement up with "but you can stomach that for just 4 mana." I was covering all my bases. I know there are many game changing cards for 4 mana that don't immediately impact the board (Brago, Zur, etc.) but it IS something to factor in.
When examining a card, you need to look at all its range of values, from bad to good, and see how often they happen. There are scenarios where faerie artisan is not good, just like how there are scenarios where oracle of mul daya isn't good. However oracle of mul daya has a high ceiling which is why so many green decks play it. All I'm saying is to make sure you don't get tunnel visioned on a card.
I did not say that faerie artisan isn't good. I simply said that my opinion on it changed. When it was first spoiled I thought it would be THE best card to come out of the set by a mile (before everything else was spoiled) and that it would go into every blue deck. My opinion is now that you do need a little build around, and the decks that want to play it changed from "every blue deck" into "every blue creature deck". Instead of being "best card in the set by a mile", it's now a 1A and 1B with deepglow skate (this is ignoring any of the legendary creatures who could become the head of a meta warping deck, as those decks are usually good because of a specific card[s] in the deck and not because the general is "land this general and win the game"). For example Azami might want this card, but not nearly as much as Roon of the Hidden Realm (in particular, Roon himself can flicker the artisan at will to keep a specific token).
1) Ensure that at least one opponent is very creature heavy.
2) Play flicker effects to flicker the artisan and be able to keep a given token (sometimes the flicker effect will also save the artisan from a removal spell).
You've missed one important outlet here: Sacrifice. Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Claws of Gix, there are so many sacrifice outlets in EDH that slip into decks for other synergies. The Vorinclex/Birds of Paradise scenario you mentioned? What if the Faerie Artisans player has Greater Good out, as many green/blue decks may have? Hell, even having High Market provides an outlet with minimal effect on decks with a stable manabase.
Sac outlets do help artisan's floor, but every deck that runs creatures should have sac outlets (in particular, high market has almost no deckbuilding cost because it's a land). This is different from flicker effects where not every deck wants those types of cards, and is why I didn't mention sac outlets, as almost every deck runs them anyway.
Compare an Azami deck that likely only has sac outlets, to a Roon deck that has sac outlets AND flicker effects. Roon will be much more likely to affect the artisan and keep a specific token than Azami.
its theoretically a beast in my meta. just totally nuts.
my meta plays a crapton of green, basically every day we get on a regular basis is g/x/x. a t-don is way less tempting when you get one too.
this is in theory though, i haven't been able to test it yet.
Lol this fairy will be stupid with Roon... either blink the fairy for a permanent token,or blink an enemy's creature to get another token of it xD.
i honestly don't see it as quite so valuable in that regard. most of the time your opponent is going to have etb's that further their own gameplan, so roon blinking their dudes will potentially backfire as they can aim things like slime at you. this card i see as much of a political rattlesnake. you're less likely to even cast that acidic slime or whatever knowing that your opponent will also get one. it makes the decisions much more difficult to make since you can't windmill slam creatures with etb's with this thing around.
i mean, do you really want to blink your opponents avenger of zendikar just to get yours for one turn? not really, it does however make them have to choose if they want to give you so many tokens
The artisans, Torpor Orb, and Hushwing Gryff will make people think twice about blink effects. In situations like these, this is where I would run creatures with downsides as ETBs. While not great against the Faerie's, Wormfang Manta is a great counter to the other two.
I'm disappointing in it because it's part of this annoying thing Wizards has been doing recently which is: making 'cares about artifact cards' that are non-artifacts.
It's a pretty selfish complaint and I can understand why they do it. It creates tension and decision making in deckbuilding by making you balance the number of artifacts you play against the number of non-artifacts. Which I think is fair for limited and standard.
The problem is with eternal formats like EDH there are already so many powerful artifacts and cares-about-artifact effects that it reduces decision making. I try to get excited about new cares-about-artifact cards but then I realize that including them just dilutes my artifact count and I probably shouldn't include them. As it turns out Faerie Artisans might be powerful enough to be an exception to this rule, but that was still my initial reaction to seeing this card.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Prior to the legendary rule change, this card would have essentially read: Opponents can't play their commander.
It does nothing when it enters play (unless you cast it with flash), and will continue to do nothing against creature-light/less decks. A resolved Faerie Artisans will also make your opponent second guess playing that Sakura-Tribe Elder, but isn't that also advantageous? Forcing your opponents to make difficult, perhaps sub-optimal choices?
Faerie Artisans seems like a lot of potential value, but with very little guaranteed advantage. Another heavily meta-dependent card. So what do you guys think about it?
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Go a head, flash that Snapcaster In. I will also get a Snapcaster token and grant something in my yard Flashback too. Or cast Consecrated Sphinx, we will be stuck in a drawing war very quick. LOL.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
my meta plays a crapton of green, basically every day we get on a regular basis is g/x/x. a t-don is way less tempting when you get one too.
this is in theory though, i haven't been able to test it yet.
Lol this fairy will be stupid with Roon... either blink the fairy for a permanent token,or blink an enemy's creature to get another token of it xD.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
It allows us to copy creatures with useful enter the battlefield or activated abilities (Solemn Simulacrum, Sakura-Tribal Elder, Wood Elves, Reclamation Sage). You can also mirror huge bombs like Void Winnower. Faerie Artisans discourages opponents from playing spells like Merciless Executioner. This card can do so much. If our opponent plays an Ashen Rider, and they attempt to exile one of our permanents, we can respond by exiling their Ashen Rider or another one of their permanents. In creature dominate metas, this card is just bonkers. It absolutely shuts down decks like Brago, King Eternal. Faerie Artisans also creates a blocker we can use, and in some instances, a creature we can attack with.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Pre-ordered several of these when they were listed for $1.50 each, now I see they've jumped up to $4. Not quite as pricey as Deepglow Skate, though I feel that Faerie Artisans is more relevant in a broader range of situations. Deepglow Skate is powerful and will be abused, but it's a one trick pony IMO.
It will generally act as a kind of "punisher" mechanic in that people will often not throw their big creatures out when this is in play, especially if it has an ETB effect. If I have a terastodon in hand and an opponent has faerie artisan, I will not play it unless that player has no reason to blow up anything on my board, or if I absolutely must play it for whatever reason; the point being that I have the choice to play terastodon or not, compared to something like Void Winnower which literally says I would not be able to cast that Terastodon ever until Winnower is gone. Most people will sandbag certain creatures until they can get the token off. For example, you could play Vorinclex and then immediately follow up with something like Birds of Paradise so the opponent has to exile the Vorinclex token to minimize the impact. There is value in making opponents not play out certain creatures, but it's not really a tangible value and is difficult to measure, which makes it a volatile card in terms of the impact it'll have on the game.
You really want at least one opponent who is very creature heavy so that he's often forced to play creatures into the artisan. If the creature doesn't have an ETB effect, you likely won't evne get value from the token. For example if I play brago into the artisan, it likely won't do anything, as the next creature played will exile the brago token and basically no damage will be done.
If you can flicker the artisan at will then you can choose when to keep a given token, which is a neat trick and can sometimes catch people off guard. You will have to build around it, though it's not like "lolz creatures with ETB effects + flicker dot deck" is a bad deck or anything.
Also, it technically does not immediately impact the board, so it can get killed before any tokens are made, but you can stomach that for just 4 mana.
Basically, to improve Faerie artisan's floor...
1) Ensure that at least one opponent is very creature heavy.
2) Play flicker effects to flicker the artisan and be able to keep a given token (sometimes the flicker effect will also save the artisan from a removal spell).
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
I want to respond to a few things IMProgentius mentioned that appear to be pouring cold water on the Faerie Artisans hype train.
This is an incredibly big deal and is just one of the reasons Faerie Artisans is such a good card. If Jamie is playing Sultai control deck with a Sylvan Library and Phyrexian Arena in play and Taylor refuses to play their Terastodon because of a creature on the battlefield that costs 3U, Jamie is in an excellent position. In this case, Jamie is controlling Taylor and able to keep Terastodon in check without having to hold mana up.
Even in your scenario, the player who plays Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger has to lock down one of their lands just because another player had Faerie Artisans in play. That's a big deal. Plus, the Faerie Artisans might make it to their turn with a free Birds of Paradise. This is the best case scenario for the player who has Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. It is important to keep in mind, there are going to be times where the player with a big creature doesn't have an additional creature they can just sandbag with. For example, the mono green player is in top draw mode and they draw a Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger while another player has Faerie Artisans on the field.
This is very common. Most metas are creature based, and new cards that are created, especially in commander sets are creature based. Consider how many decks there are that are creature based or run multiple creatures that Faerie Artisans would love to take advantage of. Think how many white decks play Sun Titan, Reveillark, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Karmic Justice. Think how many red decks play Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Think how many blue decks play Snapcaster Mage. Think how many green decks run Sakura-Tribe Elder. You don't need to play against an Animar deck to get mileage out of Faerie Artisans.
That doesn't mean it's not amazing. Many times Oracle of Mul Daya doesn't impact the board right away, but it's still ridiculously powerful. Speaking of Oracle of Mul Daya, one reason that card is so good is because it only requires one colored mana. I can't tell you how many 3 and 5 color decks I've seen play Oracle of Mul Daya on turn 3 or 4 and suddenly run away with the game. Prepare to see the same thing with Faerie Artisans.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
As for how powerful it is, I suspect it'll often just prevent your opponents from playing powerful creatures until it eats a removal spell. That's not bad, but it's not necessary great either.
You've missed one important outlet here: Sacrifice. Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Claws of Gix, there are so many sacrifice outlets in EDH that slip into decks for other synergies. The Vorinclex/Birds of Paradise scenario you mentioned? What if the Faerie Artisans player has Greater Good out, as many green/blue decks may have? Hell, even having High Market provides an outlet with minimal effect on decks with a stable manabase.
Dispersing Orb is too expensive for the effect, I think.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Another obvious way around the downside is populate. Or blink effects. But even without that, it can be cute to hit ETB triggers. Take Bane of Progress:
AP's Bane of Progress ETB, BOP's trigger hits the stack.
NAP's Faerie Artisans trigger hits the stack.
Faerie Artisans' ability resolves.
Clone token's ability resolves.
No artifacts or enchantments for the original BOP to destroy, except possibly ones that have persist or undying (i.e., artifact creatures with Mike). Original BOP doesn't destroy anything (except corner cases, i.e. Mike), no +1/+1 counters for original BOP.
On phasing:
Current Decks
GTitania midrange
RGThromok tokens/goodstuff | UB Grimgrin zombie tribal
GW Sigarda enchantress | R Godo voltron
U Braids aggro | WR Kalemne punisher
RU Mizzix storm | BUG Mimeoplasm competitive reanimator | UG Ezuri infect
What I mean by "punisher" mechanic in this context is that the opponent gets to choose whether or not they want to play X creature. Compare that to something like Void Winnower, where the card explicitly says that the opponent can't play Terastodon at all. Here, Taylor gets to choose whether or not he wants to play Terastodon. This is what I mean by more variance in the effect Faerie Artisan has on the board.
For example, let's say we had a hypothetical Faerie Artisan 2 where this version made tokens of the nontoken creatures that ETB'd under your control. This artisan's value is much easier to gauge because you have more control over what creatures to play, compared to the real Faerie Artisan where the opponents have the say on what creature tokens you get.
Again, I did not say that there was no value in making Taylor hesitant on playing certain creatures, but that value is harder to determine than the above examples.
Just tap the land(s) before the opponent makes the vorinclex token.
And yes, sometimes the opponent won't have the birds to immediately follow their vorinclex to exile the vorinclex token, so the vorinclex will get stuck in their hand. And yes, getting a birds token on your turn is still not that bad in some cases. However the point is that faerie artisan has some volatility in its worth.
Faerie artisan is not as good in hypercutthroat metas where games are over in like 4-5 turns and many of the broken decks aren't that heavy on creatures, or have creatures that you can't utilize as well as they do. Doomsday combo, hermit druid, narset, etc.
[/quote]
I immediately followed that statement up with "but you can stomach that for just 4 mana." I was covering all my bases. I know there are many game changing cards for 4 mana that don't immediately impact the board (Brago, Zur, etc.) but it IS something to factor in.
When examining a card, you need to look at all its range of values, from bad to good, and see how often they happen. There are scenarios where faerie artisan is not good, just like how there are scenarios where oracle of mul daya isn't good. However oracle of mul daya has a high ceiling which is why so many green decks play it. All I'm saying is to make sure you don't get tunnel visioned on a card.
I did not say that faerie artisan isn't good. I simply said that my opinion on it changed. When it was first spoiled I thought it would be THE best card to come out of the set by a mile (before everything else was spoiled) and that it would go into every blue deck. My opinion is now that you do need a little build around, and the decks that want to play it changed from "every blue deck" into "every blue creature deck". Instead of being "best card in the set by a mile", it's now a 1A and 1B with deepglow skate (this is ignoring any of the legendary creatures who could become the head of a meta warping deck, as those decks are usually good because of a specific card[s] in the deck and not because the general is "land this general and win the game"). For example Azami might want this card, but not nearly as much as Roon of the Hidden Realm (in particular, Roon himself can flicker the artisan at will to keep a specific token).
Sac outlets do help artisan's floor, but every deck that runs creatures should have sac outlets (in particular, high market has almost no deckbuilding cost because it's a land). This is different from flicker effects where not every deck wants those types of cards, and is why I didn't mention sac outlets, as almost every deck runs them anyway.
Compare an Azami deck that likely only has sac outlets, to a Roon deck that has sac outlets AND flicker effects. Roon will be much more likely to affect the artisan and keep a specific token than Azami.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
i honestly don't see it as quite so valuable in that regard. most of the time your opponent is going to have etb's that further their own gameplan, so roon blinking their dudes will potentially backfire as they can aim things like slime at you. this card i see as much of a political rattlesnake. you're less likely to even cast that acidic slime or whatever knowing that your opponent will also get one. it makes the decisions much more difficult to make since you can't windmill slam creatures with etb's with this thing around.
i mean, do you really want to blink your opponents avenger of zendikar just to get yours for one turn? not really, it does however make them have to choose if they want to give you so many tokens
It's a pretty selfish complaint and I can understand why they do it. It creates tension and decision making in deckbuilding by making you balance the number of artifacts you play against the number of non-artifacts. Which I think is fair for limited and standard.
The problem is with eternal formats like EDH there are already so many powerful artifacts and cares-about-artifact effects that it reduces decision making. I try to get excited about new cares-about-artifact cards but then I realize that including them just dilutes my artifact count and I probably shouldn't include them. As it turns out Faerie Artisans might be powerful enough to be an exception to this rule, but that was still my initial reaction to seeing this card.