Reliquary Tower is an excellent card. Plenty of decks draw too many cards, and even more are rewarded for building a critical mass of resources safely in hand rather than play out into the format with 1000 board wipes a game and very few Thoughtseizes. I think anyone suggesting it isn't an excellent card is overcompensating to counterbalance the people who thoughtlessly throw it into any deck, and I don't think that's a particularly productive viewpoint.
No, we're not. It's a mediocre card that does an OK thing in some decks and is played a lot very incorrectly. In general people play way too many colorless lands in EDH and this do-nothing is stealthily costing people games by preventing them from casting their spells constantly.
While in an extremely casual meta people will sit by while someone durdles and holds a grip of 20 cards with a reliquary tower, that's not the type of thing that decent players let slide. You leave your board with low commitment you're the punching bag and you've got to start spending those cards to survive.
Almost everyone would be better off cutting it for either another color source or a better colorless land. I would go so far as to say these days that that is probably true of all decks, but that's just my opinion - there're so many dang things you can play in the colorless slot these days. It'd be a really good idea to re-assess.
Back when I was a new player and I played with new players, games went 50 turns with everyone durdling and spinning around doing nothing. But games just do not go that long anymore and people have stopped refusing to attack, so games go faster. As such it's a rare meta that gets to sit around amassing cards like that. And if you pass the turn with 20 cards you're rightly going to be public enemy #1.
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At the most fundamental level, if your deck has Reliquary tower but does not have Ancient Tomb you are wrong. And that's a pretty comical number of decks, even with AT being reprinted and fairly cheap.
So if you have reliquary tower and not one of those three you're just making a bad decision. It's fine, people make lots of questionable deckbuilding decisions for a variety of reasons and that's totally OK (budget, preference, etc.).
But defending it and calling it "excellent" is just not a very good assessment in my opinion. It's OK at best.
No, we're not. It's a mediocre card that does an OK thing in some decks and is played a lot very incorrectly. In general people play way too many colorless lands in EDH and this do-nothing is stealthily costing people games by preventing them from casting their spells constantly.
While in an extremely casual meta people will sit by while someone durdles and holds a grip of 20 cards with a reliquary tower, that's not the type of thing that decent players let slide. You leave your board with low commitment you're the punching bag and you've got to start spending those cards to survive.
Almost everyone would be better off cutting it for either another color source or a better colorless land. I would go so far as to say these days that that is probably true of all decks, but that's just my opinion - there're so many dang things you can play in the colorless slot these days. It'd be a really good idea to re-assess.
Back when I was a new player and I played with new players, games went 50 turns with everyone durdling and spinning around doing nothing. But games just do not go that long anymore and people have stopped refusing to attack, so games go faster. As such it's a rare meta that gets to sit around amassing cards like that. And if you pass the turn with 20 cards you're rightly going to be public enemy #1.
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At the most fundamental level, if your deck has Reliquary tower but does not have Ancient Tomb you are wrong. And that's a pretty comical number of decks, even with AT being reprinted and fairly cheap.
So if you have reliquary tower and not one of those three you're just making a bad decision. It's fine, people make lots of questionable deckbuilding decisions for a variety of reasons and that's totally OK (budget, preference, etc.).
But defending it and calling it "excellent" is just not a very good assessment in my opinion. It's OK at best.
Please, reconsider everything you just said. I've certainly acknowledged there are people who play it in decks where it's not a good inclusion, perhaps referring to people as just "wrong" is a tad further than you want to go.
If you need me to list 100 situations where Reliquary Tower is playable over Ancient Tomb, I can do that. If you want me to list 10,000 situations where it generates more interesting gameplay than Ancient Tomb, that's not even a challenge.
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Reliquary Tower is an excellent card. Plenty of decks draw too many cards, and even more are rewarded for building a critical mass of resources safely in hand rather than play out into the format with 1000 board wipes a game and very few Thoughtseizes. I think anyone suggesting it isn't an excellent card is overcompensating to counterbalance the people who thoughtlessly throw it into any deck, and I don't think that's a particularly productive viewpoint.
tstorm, i like ya, you're good people, but you're alone on this mountaintop, man. Pokken is right, just because n00b players will sit with 20 cards in hand dragging out games because of their own decision paralysis doesn't mean Tower is a worthy slot. Bad cards do not make excuses that turn bad deck building and player skill into good. Again, hoarding cards in hand is a resource that is not being utilized in a meaningful way (see also, why Arc-Slogger is a good card or why Tainted Pact is a phenomenal tutour - because they provide an effect in exchange for a resource that is not actually iMPACTing the game), once you get beyond the max natural hand size (and even before that point, sometimes). And even then, your excess gluttony of resources is only protected until the first Wasteland comes up? Or Blood Moon. Still doesn't seem that safe of an investment when compared to the other options also vulnerable to the same level of disruption.
You know what's better? Tower of the Magistrate, and that is a card that is a nonbasic Wastes in nine of every ten games. But that one game where it's a difference maker, that one clutch play is better than any perceived benefit from R-Tower.
I'll gladly reconsider if you can list 100 reasons that are not aesthetic or budget related to put Reliquary tower in your deck over ancient tomb.
Situations are insufficient because "Opportunity to Turn 1 signet" beats 99 of the 100 gameplay situations.
If you can list 3 I would be very surprised.
There are 16 generals with flash, 2 of which can give half your deck flash, that you could build around playing on opponents' turns. That's a reason to not want to discard at your end step. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur is one of those with flash. Can't play signets anyway, is that extra one mana toward your 10 drop going to outweigh losing most of those 7 cards a turn? Should I keep going?
tstorm, i like ya, you're good people, but you're alone on this mountaintop, man. Pokken is right, just because n00b players will sit with 20 cards in hand dragging out games because of their own decision paralysis doesn't mean Tower is a worthy slot. Bad cards do not make excuses that turn bad deck building and player skill into good. Again, hoarding cards in hand is a resource that is not being utilized in a meaningful way (see also, why Arc-Slogger is a good card or why Tainted Pact is a phenomenal tutour - because they provide an effect in exchange for a resource that is not actually iMPACTing the game), once you get beyond the max natural hand size (and even before that point, sometimes). And even then, your excess gluttony of resources is only protected until the first Wasteland comes up? Or Blood Moon. Still doesn't seem that safe of an investment when compared to the other options also vulnerable to the same level of disruption.
You know what's better? Tower of the Magistrate, and that is a card that is a nonbasic Wastes in nine of every ten games. But that one game where it's a difference maker, that one clutch play is better than any perceived benefit from R-Tower.
I know it breaks your heart to hear this, but not every deck is burn. There are many decks intended to outlast and outdraw your raw red efficiency that win the game with 7+ cards in hand.
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I think both fans and doubters of Reliquary Tower are wrong if they think it's a good or bad card at all times/in all decks.
When playing Edric, Spymaster of Trest, i start exceeding maximum hand size on turn 4 regularly. Say i want to hold at least a counter, a removal spell, a creature and a land until my next turn, that's half of a "normal" hand occupied. Being able to hold 8+ cards allows me to be as active and reactive as possible.
Several tiers below my Zada, Hedron Grinder example kicks in. That deck is utterly wrecked when hit by a board wipe! Holding up as many cards as possible is crucial if i feel like participating in the game beyond the first sweeper. Often times you're trying to establish a solid board with her and pray for your creatures to stick around until next turn. But if that doesn't happen you don't want to sit on a few buff spells (that would've won you the game otherwise), just because you had to ditch cards that would've come in handy rebuilding later on.
On the other hand slotting it into decks just because you might outdraw yourself naturally somehow is an aweful idea.
The remaining question isn't how good it can or cannot be, it's whether the majority of decks could profit from it. Given the amount of decks that play from their graveyard or aren't able to draw as many cards to make it valid, that's arguably not the case. 75k/34% of all decks on EDHREC include it and im certain a vast majority of them wouldn't need it or be outright better without it.
Please go on tstorm. Tell me more about how reliquary tower is better at playing jin gitaxias than ancient tomb which by playing a signet on turn one is only helping get to 10 mana by a little but.
If you play reliquary tower over ancient tomb with a 10 mana general you are someone I disagree with.
If you play it over ancient tomb even with raff...well tomb creates a turn 3 raff on 3 lands and no other ramp so that's pretty alright.
Please come up with an actual single deck that wants reliquary tower over ancient tomb.
Edric is probably as close as it gets and the spikey edric decks have all cut reliquary because the deck is so color greedy. I could see it wanting neither.
Now that Ancient Tomb got cheaper, I think the only optimized deck I play at this point that doesn't run it is Yuriko because like Edric the colorless is almost not worth having given the color requirements of the deck. Ring is still okay but my first 3-4 turns NEED to be colored sources.
Now that I think about it, even Xenagod doesn't always care about not finding it after drawing 12. However, it does help when your hand is mostly situational cards and you sacced a big body just to draw into a followup that is less situational. However, that deck is built to tutor Ancient Tomb big time and that is always the first target of a land tutor.
It depends a lot on the deck strat, just as much if not moreso than the number of cards you're likely to draw. If you're playing a combo deck, you have no real need to keep 15 cards in hand - once you've got the critical pieces and some protection, you should be good to go, and the rest is mostly irrelevant. Whereas if you're planning to play a long, grindy control game, having access to those resources could matter, many turns down the road. Especially if you're playing narrow-ish answers where it can be hard to be sure which to keep and which to get rid of.
Goes without saying that the card doesn't go into lots of decks, but if you have low color requirements, some big draw spells, and you're planning to play a slow control game, I'd definitely consider it. Maybe even over ancient tomb which, while much more powerful generally, might not be as useful for that sort of gameplan.
Please go on tstorm. Tell me more about how reliquary tower is better at playing jin gitaxias than ancient tomb which by playing a signet on turn one is only helping get to 10 mana by a little but.
If you play reliquary tower over ancient tomb with a 10 mana general you are someone I disagree with.
If you play it over ancient tomb even with raff...well tomb creates a turn 3 raff on 3 lands and no other ramp so that's pretty alright.
Please come up with an actual single deck that wants reliquary tower over ancient tomb.
Edric is probably as close as it gets and the spikey edric decks have all cut reliquary because the deck is so color greedy. I could see it wanting neither.
Jin Gitaxias still isn't allowed to play signets, but that's beside the point.
I have Reliquary Tower in 2 decks. Zedruu, which is color hungry enough to often fizzle a second colorless (from when I played Sol Ring), has a pile of Howling Mines to break the symmetry on, tries to play everything at instant speed when possible, and often wins in turns that involve untapping my lands a couple dozen times making Ancient Tomb probably just stop producing mana at some point. The second deck I have is Taigam, Sidisi's Hand, my other deck that intends to play mostly on opponents turn, a relatively controlling deck. But it also has Mind's Eye and Null Profusion and Mind Over Matter in it, so yes, no maximum hand size is a seriously powerful effect there too.
I used to play Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant for a bit. There's a deck that seriously wouldn't care about Ancient Tomb, but got way easier to do its thing without a maximum hand size. On the subject of Kamigawa flip cards, Jushi Apprentice gets better. I had Hokori, Dust Drinker for a long time, and while that did have both Reliquary Tower and Ancient Tomb, I basically never wanted to draw Ancient Tomb after turns 1 and 2. I had a giant pile of artifact ramp in that deck and used my one land untap to get a white mana almost every time, and could go over 7 cards in hand for obvious reasons. (One of the most oppressive things about Hokori is that if people's only way of dealng with it is a board wipe, if it had Lightning Greaves on or something, you get to untap before that player, play out a bunch of cards real fast, and then recast Hokori.)
Do you seriously believe that these well thought out and tested uses of Reliquary Tower are wrong?
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It's just a card you put in your deck. It doesn't really do anything but it's cost is only a land drop.
I think this is the post that somes up what this thread is for.
Reliquary Tower is fantastic at what it does. It's just that what it does is not worth doing most of the time. Sure, the cost is low. But that cost can and will matter, especially if you are not doing something to take advantage of the effect.
A well built manabase is a fantastic thing. Reliquary Tower almost always makes the manabase worse.
If your reason for running Reliquary Tower comes down to "I might...." then you shouldn't be running it. If you just run a lot of card draw and end up with a lot of cards in hand, you still probably shouldn't be running it (You should be figuring out how to better deploy your resources rather than hoard them).
It's not that there aren't uses for the Tower. There are. It's just that they are far rarer than most people believe, and because the cost of running Tower is small (although not as small as it appears), many people run it when they shouldn't.
Jin Gitaxias still isn't allowed to play signets, but that's beside the point.
I have Reliquary Tower in 2 decks. Zedruu, which is color hungry enough to often fizzle a second colorless (from when I played Sol Ring), has a pile of Howling Mines to break the symmetry on, tries to play everything at instant speed when possible, and often wins in turns that involve untapping my lands a couple dozen times making Ancient Tomb probably just stop producing mana at some point. The second deck I have is Taigam, Sidisi's Hand, my other deck that intends to play mostly on opponents turn, a relatively controlling deck. But it also has Mind's Eye and Null Profusion and Mind Over Matter in it, so yes, no maximum hand size is a seriously powerful effect there too.
I used to play Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant for a bit. There's a deck that seriously wouldn't care about Ancient Tomb, but got way easier to do its thing without a maximum hand size. On the subject of Kamigawa flip cards, Jushi Apprentice gets better. I had Hokori, Dust Drinker for a long time, and while that did have both Reliquary Tower and Ancient Tomb, I basically never wanted to draw Ancient Tomb after turns 1 and 2. I had a giant pile of artifact ramp in that deck and used my one land untap to get a white mana almost every time, and could go over 7 cards in hand for obvious reasons. (One of the most oppressive things about Hokori is that if people's only way of dealng with it is a board wipe, if it had Lightning Greaves on or something, you get to untap before that player, play out a bunch of cards real fast, and then recast Hokori.)
Do you seriously believe that these well thought out and tested uses of Reliquary Tower are wrong?
(Jin can play 2 mana rocks of various sizes so please let's not get stuck on pedantry)
Yes, absolutely. I think most people are bad at assessing the benefits of things like RT. Even some good players and decent deckbuilders will go "Remembr that time RT let me keep those 5 extra cards?" And forget about the time it inconvenienced their sequencing.
When Ancient Tomb is wrong, which it is in some very few decks, Scavenger Grounds and Blast Zone are both better. In a control shell with low color commitments, being able to blow out your opponent's graveyard or play a pernicious deed in the land slot are both better than maybe getting to hold extra cards.
While there are some decks that benefit from holding the extra cards, it's by far the exception. Most of those decks would gain more over the long haul from having a more stable manabase. Most manabases I see in EDH are very questionable. It's usually the last place people focus.
Slow, controlly decks make some sense to me at wanting it I guess, but there are so many cards that will get you out of a jam that you can run in those slots that I'd be more inclined toward that.
RT displays the "winmore fallacy" in EDH pretty well too; people are more inclined to play cards that are good in winning situations than in losing situations. Do you want a card you can topdeck that helps you close out a game when you're in great position (>7 cards) or do you want a card that you can topdeck when you have 3 cards and the graveyard guy is about to go off?
Anyway, don't intend any of this to come off as condescending. Dirk and OneRing made a couple good points about RT and places where it could be played.
But I stand 100% by my thesis that it's an OK card that's grossly overplayed and most people should re-think it with the printing of more powerful colorless lands in the last few years. Calling it an Excellent card is a stretch. It's Excellent in so few situations that it does a disservice to actually good cards to describe it that way
Reliquary Tower, like all utility lands, should only be included in decks that seriously need the effect on a land. Usually I only include it in decks with lots of counterspells or other instant speed things that sit in my hand that also have a lot of draw.
Holding excess cards without playing them is inefficient resource adjudication. This is a "resource" that is not actually doing anything to help you win. No, just drawing thirty doesn't win on it's own unless you found your combo...in which case you don't need the Tower because you just won. Unless you have an arbitrarily large amount of mana, you're not casting them in one turn either. And if you did have this mana, why didn't you just win (blue sun zenith)?
Its win-more. Simple, common greed. Casual, n00b bait at it's finest.
Well, since the card is a land, the first question is, is it worth trading in a basic land? It might be, if you're in 0-2 colors, maybe even 3 colors if you don't have that many cards costing three mana of one color (or two mana each of two separate colors), but above that? Not so much. (And yes, you should use at least some basic lands even in five-color decks.)
The second question is much more complicated. Is it worth playing just on its own merits, not as something extra you sometimes get? I would say control decks are probably the only time it is. No other deck archetype depends on holding cards in your hand. It's irrelevant for aggro or combo, and it actively works against you if you're playing something like reanimator or dredge
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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!
Holding excess cards without playing them is inefficient resource adjudication. This is a "resource" that is not actually doing anything to help you win. No, just drawing thirty doesn't win on it's own unless you found your combo...in which case you don't need the Tower because you just won. Unless you have an arbitrarily large amount of mana, you're not casting them in one turn either. And if you did have this mana, why didn't you just win (blue sun zenith)?
Its win-more. Simple, common greed. Casual, n00b bait at it's finest.
Well, since the card is a land, the first question is, is it worth trading in a basic land? It might be, if you're in 0-2 colors, maybe even 3 colors if you don't have that many cards costing three mana of one color (or two mana each of two separate colors), but above that? Not so much. (And yes, you should use at least some basic lands even in five-color decks.)
The second question is much more complicated. Is it worth playing just on its own merits, not as something extra you sometimes get? I would say control decks are probably the only time it is. No other deck archetype depends on holding cards in your hand. It's irrelevant for aggro or combo, and it actively works against you if you're playing something like reanimator or dredge
well, even when playing decks where having cards in hand is important, having 20 cards makes most players phase out in their head, whereas 7 would keep them focused. EDH is a complex game as it is, but having to process 20 cards in hand to remember what sort of interactions would help them would overload 99% of all players, making them just blank even the most obvious plays/lines.
There's another really interesting thing about the land. All of you who use it, just make a paper note every single time you play it, and mark down every single time it's been relevant. I heard this method from some podcast (don't recall which/whom suggested it), but i started doing it, and after a month of playing, i realised that it's never been relevant, even when i play decks with a lot of card draw abilities.
I think like tstorm brings up though, there ARE relevant uses for it. It's just significantly more niche than many players would see it as.
All that said, I used to chuck it into all my decks, before i realised that it's actually making me play worse. I've since gotten rid of all of them, and i don't think i've ever missed them.
Please come up with an actual single deck that wants reliquary tower over ancient tomb.
Someone mentioned Feather, the Redeemed earlier in the thread. It's up for debate how helpful any colorless land needs to be in a deck as color intensive as a Feather cantrip list, but Tower is almost certainly better than Tomb there.
I'm on the same page as most of the thread. No max hand size is not a great effect and there are usually better cards that you could be running than Tower, but if you do want the effect it's probably tied with or slightly ahead of Thought Vessel as the best way to include it.
I think the only place I've run Tower in recent years is Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, for the sole reason that the deck was designed as an excessively Timmy list and ran Myojin of Life's Web along with green's big creature draw. Untapping and dropping 5-6 of the better enormous creatures would have been good enough most of the time, but it wasn't nearly as entertaining as dropping 15-20 of them and it was easier to hold a land drop than it was to hold up the 6-9 mana the enablers need at times.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
Feather definitely wants ancient tomb. Turn 1 ancient tomb, turn 2 signet + land = turn 2 feather. One of the very few ways to do it actually (mostly sol ring/mana crypt related).
If you're running more than a handful of 2 mana rocks you probably want ancient tomb because of the insane explosive starts you get.
While 70% of the feather decks out there run reliquary tower, 0% are running Scavenger Grounds which tells you something. That something is that people make bad choices. Because Feather does not need reliquary tower for literally anything.
*Budget* feather decks probably don't want ancient tomb. Because it costs 20 dollars.
WR is really horrible at ramping and most of the good stuff Feather wants to blink is fairly expensive, things like Sun Titan and Solemn and so on. And you want to cast multiple spells every turn. You know what enables that? Ramping +1 in your land slot
After reflecting on it a lot I think the only decks I can think of that actually want a reliquary tower period are control shells or shells that have huge burst card draw. And a high percentage of those would probably like to reanimate stuff. Things like mono black goodstuff, or UWX spell based control (cards like spelltwine or Snapcaster Mage or similar).
Yuriko is kind of a special case in that it doesn't really want to cast big mana spells most of the time, but I'm not really sure about that. I would need to see a no-budget decklist but my gut instinct is that their color demands are going to be high enough that lots of colorless sources are not a great choice - and many Yuriko decks could benefit from reanimate, dread return, that kinda stuff.
The question of "vs strip mine" or "vs. ancient tomb" or 'vs. scavenger grounds" is mostly a thought exercise because lots of decks can run both if they want. But it gets much more constructive if you can think about decklists and how many colorless slots they have.
I'd be more than happy to analyze some decklists if people want to post specific ones where they think RQT is better than XX colorless land. But I really cannot imagine a time where all of these four generic ones would not come first, and I can't think of that many decks that want more than 4 colorless lands.
Feather definitely wants ancient tomb. Turn 1 ancient tomb, turn 2 signet + land = turn 2 feather. One of the very few ways to do it actually (mostly sol ring/mana crypt related).
Arguing in favour of a land that makes colourless in a deck as drastically colour-intensive as Feather because opening a hand with a two-drop rock lets you play it turn one doesn't really check out, sorry. Note that the literal actual signet is the only one that nets you more than one coloured from this elaborate operation. I run Reliquary Tower as the only non-coloured land in my mana base.
That said, the sort of decks that want Reliquary Tower are indeed quite few and far in between. They're the ones that count on sheer card quantity to get the job done, or draw scarcely and massively. The opportunity cost of running it may be low, but that doesn't make it worth an automatic shoe-in.
The remaining question isn't how good it can or cannot be, it's whether the majority of decks could profit from it. Given the amount of decks that play from their graveyard or aren't able to draw as many cards to make it valid, that's arguably not the case. 75k/34% of all decks on EDHREC include it and im certain a vast majority of them wouldn't need it or be outright better without it.
Agreed. I liked your examples of Edric and Zada, though for me it would be Edric and Feather - out of the approximately 100 Commander decks I've built over the years, these are the two decks that most need Reliquary Tower.
In Edric, I run Aluren, and saving hordes of vulnerable evasive creatures in hand until the last possible moment keeps me from overcommitting to the board and protects them from sorcery speed removal. I also run Forbid, and keeping 5-6 basic lands in hand gives me plenty of buyback fodder.
In Feather, I want to cast the cards in hand over and over and over. Keeping three or four blink/indestructible/protection spells helps save my board and be able to respond with the appropriate one for any given threat. Having redundancy allows me to respond to their response. Keeping cantrips and scry cards helps me dig deeper. Keeping aggressive cards helps me to actually close out a game. If I had to cut down to seven each game, I would be hampered and have to keep the defensive ones (because the other cards do no good if I can't keep my board alive), slowing my gameplan to a crawl. Reliquary Tower is the only colorless utility land I run in Feather (the deck is very color-intensive), but it certainly earns its spot.
Reliquary Tower, like all utility lands, should only be included in decks that seriously need the effect on a land.
Yeah, with all utility lands, I have to ask if it is worth the drawback of producing colorless or entering tapped. And most decks don't really need this effect. The ones that do, though, love this land. Decks that use Vedalken Orrery/Leyline of Anticipation/Alchemist's Refuge can often benefit from Reliquary Tower more than decks that don't.
Holding excess cards without playing them is inefficient resource adjudication. This is a "resource" that is not actually doing anything to help you win. No, just drawing thirty doesn't win on it's own unless you found your combo...in which case you don't need the Tower because you just won. Unless you have an arbitrarily large amount of mana, you're not casting them in one turn either. And if you did have this mana, why didn't you just win (blue sun zenith)?
Its win-more. Simple, common greed. Casual, n00b bait at it's finest.
This analysis is a bit too reductive to be accurate. "Holding excess cards without playing them" is not the same thing as holding excess cards to play them at the right time. It may be win-more in the majority of decks, but in other decks, it is keep-from-losing. My examples above of Edric and Feather both generate massive amounts of card advantage, but they also rely on maintaining that card advantage to win. Edric has backup for his effect (Coastal Piracy/Bident of Thassa), so it doesn't really matter if he sticks, but I do need all of my evasive 1-2 drops to live. With Aluren out, Tower keeps them safe in hand until my opponent's end-step; without Aluren, I still have to keep some in hand so a board wipe doesn't kick me out of the game. Feather is a bit harder and more general-dependent because she has such a unique ability. And while I dislike decks that can't function without their commander, Reliquary Tower mitigates some of the problems by allowing me to keep both the cards that keep Feather alive and the cards that help me to win.
Feather definitely wants ancient tomb. Turn 1 ancient tomb, turn 2 signet + land = turn 2 feather. One of the very few ways to do it actually (mostly sol ring/mana crypt related).
Arguing in favour of a land that makes colourless in a deck as drastically colour-intensive as Feather because opening a hand with a two-drop rock lets you play it turn one doesn't really check out, sorry. Note that the literal actual signet is the only one that nets you more than one coloured from this elaborate operation. I run Reliquary Tower as the only non-coloured land in my mana base.
That said, the sort of decks that want Reliquary Tower are indeed quite few and far in between. They're the ones that count on sheer card quantity to get the job done, or draw scarcely and massively. The opportunity cost of running it may be low, but that doesn't make it worth an automatic shoe-in.
I agree that the slots are very tight in Feather, but AT is far more likely to fix your mana on time than RQT (signets, talismans, wayfarer's bauble, kor cartographer, armillary sphere, solemn, etc.). Having an ancient tomb is far more likely to do something good in the game.
That said, here is a short list of utility lands that are better than RQT in any Feather deck as a single colorless land:
It's Excellent in so few situations that it does a disservice to actually good cards to describe it that way
Here's what you're missing: there's no such thing as a "situationally excellent" magic card, at least not in a meaningful way. Most of the cards ever printed are perfect in some situations and useless in others. To be excellent in multiple situations at all is excellent period. Once again, I agree that people tossing it in decks because they think it's somehow good in a vacuum are wrong, but it's your job building a deck to make your cards reach that excellence. From my experience, Reliquary Tower can be used in decks in multiple archetypes where it shines exceptionally. You're trying to judge cards by what they do if you shove them in any random deck, demanding a card fit almost anywhere before you consider it good. There is no reason to care about how good a card is in decks that shouldn't play it, that's totally meaningless. You should evaluate cards by what they do in decks that are built in a way that maximize their potential.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Well, since the card is a land, the first question is, is it worth trading in a basic land? It might be, if you're in 0-2 colors, maybe even 3 colors if you don't have that many cards costing three mana of one color (or two mana each of two separate colors), but above that? Not so much. (And yes, you should use at least some basic lands even in five-color decks.)
The second question is much more complicated. Is it worth playing just on its own merits, not as something extra you sometimes get? I would say control decks are probably the only time it is. No other deck archetype depends on holding cards in your hand. It's irrelevant for aggro or combo, and it actively works against you if you're playing something like reanimator or dredge
In single colour? Nah, you're trying to maximize basic count for Gauntlets in an attempt to make up for the shortcomings of single colour. Tower hurts both your ability to make coloured mana on time, as well as works against said Gauntlet effect you wouldn't want to miss out on.
In three colour? Especially without green, you're surely going to want to devote most of those slots to fixing (and I play seven basics in 3c FWIW, three basics, three snow basics, and a wastes, optimally). You might have Strip Mine, Wasteland, and Cavern of Souls, is R-Tower really going to make the cut here over these lands? Highly unlikely. This scenario becomes more exasperated in 4c and 5c (which should at the very least play five basics - one of each) plus your duals, fetches, and you're barely gonna fit in a Strip Mine, let alone anything else.
This reserves R-Tower for 2c decks, but only if said deck wants to and has a need to hold such a copious amount of cards as well as the capacity to draw said cards. And if they can, why are they not casting them? If there's no reason then the deck trying to hold cards is playing inefficiently and the deck in question likely still doesn't need a Tower as much as the player needs to learn why they're holding cards when they shouldn't. Or, more accurately, the player needs to learn better resource management such that they're not pissing away cards or justifying an unneeded colourless land to help mitigate their resource mismanagement.
This analysis is a bit too reductive to be accurate. "Holding excess cards without playing them" is not the same thing as holding excess cards to play them at the right time. It may be win-more in the majority of decks, but in other decks, it is keep-from-losing.
How so? Is it really keep-from-losing when you're staring at 1UG when you have a Counterspell to survive to the next turn that you can't use vs my Pyroclasm? How many protective spells does Feather, the Redeemed really need to hold? How many times will your opponents burn cards through protection on Feather, once they've already seen the answer? In this case, holding a bunch of protection spells are unneeded since they're doing the same thing and people aren't casting into your tricks once they know you have it.
Here's what you're missing: there's no such thing as a "situationally excellent" magic card, at least not in a meaningful way. Most of the cards ever printed are perfect in some situations and useless in others. To be excellent in multiple situations at all is excellent period. Once again, I agree that people tossing it in decks because they think it's somehow good in a vacuum are wrong, but it's your job building a deck to make your cards reach that excellence. From my experience, Reliquary Tower can be used in decks in multiple archetypes where it shines exceptionally. You're trying to judge cards by what they do if you shove them in any random deck, demanding a card fit almost anywhere before you consider it good. There is no reason to care about how good a card is in decks that shouldn't play it, that's totally meaningless. You should evaluate cards by what they do in decks that are built in a way that maximize their potential.
I think you're misunderstanding my position. I don't think people who toss it random decks are wrong. I think almost everyone who plays it is wrong and very very few people who play it are actually assessing its quality in their deck correctly over playing an alternative card.
It's almost never excellent, and in very few situations it is pretty good. It will affect your chance of winning much less than playing any of a huge pile of other cards when it is drawn, ranging from spells that can replace lands (expedition map, for example) to better quality utility lands.
I don't believe that it "shines exceptionally" I believe that it sometimes is okay in some archetypes, and people are usually incorrectly assessing how good it is.
I think people are wildly bad at assessing how much it hurts them as well. It absolutely affects your mulligan percentage to a non-zero degree, as well as subsequent mana screw. I would not be at all surprised to see it lose more games than it wins overall (for most decks).
Edit: Hell, find me the most tuned deck with a reliquary tower and I'll give you 10 better things to play. The closest deck I can think of is Dirk's Phelddagrif deck and even in that I could completely take or leave it. I think his mana would be better with a UG canopy land in that slot and also it's just a better card.
(and I play seven basics in 3c FWIW, three basics, three snow basics, and a wastes, optimally).
I'm curious - what's the motivation to play a wastes? Eldrazi colorless-specific costs?
I'm also kind of curious why you'd play half-snow-covered, but I guess there are no real downsides...and you're less vulnerable to wake of destruction? Or to take advantage of someone else's extraplanar lens regardless if they're playing snow or not? Or is there some other motivation I haven't thought of?
No, we're not. It's a mediocre card that does an OK thing in some decks and is played a lot very incorrectly. In general people play way too many colorless lands in EDH and this do-nothing is stealthily costing people games by preventing them from casting their spells constantly.
While in an extremely casual meta people will sit by while someone durdles and holds a grip of 20 cards with a reliquary tower, that's not the type of thing that decent players let slide. You leave your board with low commitment you're the punching bag and you've got to start spending those cards to survive.
Almost everyone would be better off cutting it for either another color source or a better colorless land. I would go so far as to say these days that that is probably true of all decks, but that's just my opinion - there're so many dang things you can play in the colorless slot these days. It'd be a really good idea to re-assess.
Back when I was a new player and I played with new players, games went 50 turns with everyone durdling and spinning around doing nothing. But games just do not go that long anymore and people have stopped refusing to attack, so games go faster. As such it's a rare meta that gets to sit around amassing cards like that. And if you pass the turn with 20 cards you're rightly going to be public enemy #1.
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At the most fundamental level, if your deck has Reliquary tower but does not have Ancient Tomb you are wrong. And that's a pretty comical number of decks, even with AT being reprinted and fairly cheap.
Then after that you have Blast Zone which is absurdly strong for a colorless land, and basically always better than reliquary tower. Then Scavenger grounds.
So if you have reliquary tower and not one of those three you're just making a bad decision. It's fine, people make lots of questionable deckbuilding decisions for a variety of reasons and that's totally OK (budget, preference, etc.).
But defending it and calling it "excellent" is just not a very good assessment in my opinion. It's OK at best.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Please, reconsider everything you just said. I've certainly acknowledged there are people who play it in decks where it's not a good inclusion, perhaps referring to people as just "wrong" is a tad further than you want to go.
If you need me to list 100 situations where Reliquary Tower is playable over Ancient Tomb, I can do that. If you want me to list 10,000 situations where it generates more interesting gameplay than Ancient Tomb, that's not even a challenge.
Situations are insufficient because "Opportunity to Turn 1 signet" beats 99 of the 100 gameplay situations.
If you can list 3 I would be very surprised.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
tstorm, i like ya, you're good people, but you're alone on this mountaintop, man. Pokken is right, just because n00b players will sit with 20 cards in hand dragging out games because of their own decision paralysis doesn't mean Tower is a worthy slot. Bad cards do not make excuses that turn bad deck building and player skill into good. Again, hoarding cards in hand is a resource that is not being utilized in a meaningful way (see also, why Arc-Slogger is a good card or why Tainted Pact is a phenomenal tutour - because they provide an effect in exchange for a resource that is not actually iMPACTing the game), once you get beyond the max natural hand size (and even before that point, sometimes). And even then, your excess gluttony of resources is only protected until the first Wasteland comes up? Or Blood Moon. Still doesn't seem that safe of an investment when compared to the other options also vulnerable to the same level of disruption.
You know what's better? Tower of the Magistrate, and that is a card that is a nonbasic Wastes in nine of every ten games. But that one game where it's a difference maker, that one clutch play is better than any perceived benefit from R-Tower.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
There are 16 generals with flash, 2 of which can give half your deck flash, that you could build around playing on opponents' turns. That's a reason to not want to discard at your end step. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur is one of those with flash. Can't play signets anyway, is that extra one mana toward your 10 drop going to outweigh losing most of those 7 cards a turn? Should I keep going?
I know it breaks your heart to hear this, but not every deck is burn. There are many decks intended to outlast and outdraw your raw red efficiency that win the game with 7+ cards in hand.
When playing Edric, Spymaster of Trest, i start exceeding maximum hand size on turn 4 regularly. Say i want to hold at least a counter, a removal spell, a creature and a land until my next turn, that's half of a "normal" hand occupied. Being able to hold 8+ cards allows me to be as active and reactive as possible.
Several tiers below my Zada, Hedron Grinder example kicks in. That deck is utterly wrecked when hit by a board wipe! Holding up as many cards as possible is crucial if i feel like participating in the game beyond the first sweeper. Often times you're trying to establish a solid board with her and pray for your creatures to stick around until next turn. But if that doesn't happen you don't want to sit on a few buff spells (that would've won you the game otherwise), just because you had to ditch cards that would've come in handy rebuilding later on.
On the other hand slotting it into decks just because you might outdraw yourself naturally somehow is an aweful idea.
The remaining question isn't how good it can or cannot be, it's whether the majority of decks could profit from it. Given the amount of decks that play from their graveyard or aren't able to draw as many cards to make it valid, that's arguably not the case. 75k/34% of all decks on EDHREC include it and im certain a vast majority of them wouldn't need it or be outright better without it.
If you play reliquary tower over ancient tomb with a 10 mana general you are someone I disagree with.
If you play it over ancient tomb even with raff...well tomb creates a turn 3 raff on 3 lands and no other ramp so that's pretty alright.
Please come up with an actual single deck that wants reliquary tower over ancient tomb.
Edric is probably as close as it gets and the spikey edric decks have all cut reliquary because the deck is so color greedy. I could see it wanting neither.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
That deck only runs a single Strip Mine effect and a Blinkmoth Nexus for colorless sources.
Now that I think about it, even Xenagod doesn't always care about not finding it after drawing 12. However, it does help when your hand is mostly situational cards and you sacced a big body just to draw into a followup that is less situational. However, that deck is built to tutor Ancient Tomb big time and that is always the first target of a land tutor.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Goes without saying that the card doesn't go into lots of decks, but if you have low color requirements, some big draw spells, and you're planning to play a slow control game, I'd definitely consider it. Maybe even over ancient tomb which, while much more powerful generally, might not be as useful for that sort of gameplan.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Jin Gitaxias still isn't allowed to play signets, but that's beside the point.
I have Reliquary Tower in 2 decks. Zedruu, which is color hungry enough to often fizzle a second colorless (from when I played Sol Ring), has a pile of Howling Mines to break the symmetry on, tries to play everything at instant speed when possible, and often wins in turns that involve untapping my lands a couple dozen times making Ancient Tomb probably just stop producing mana at some point. The second deck I have is Taigam, Sidisi's Hand, my other deck that intends to play mostly on opponents turn, a relatively controlling deck. But it also has Mind's Eye and Null Profusion and Mind Over Matter in it, so yes, no maximum hand size is a seriously powerful effect there too.
I used to play Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant for a bit. There's a deck that seriously wouldn't care about Ancient Tomb, but got way easier to do its thing without a maximum hand size. On the subject of Kamigawa flip cards, Jushi Apprentice gets better. I had Hokori, Dust Drinker for a long time, and while that did have both Reliquary Tower and Ancient Tomb, I basically never wanted to draw Ancient Tomb after turns 1 and 2. I had a giant pile of artifact ramp in that deck and used my one land untap to get a white mana almost every time, and could go over 7 cards in hand for obvious reasons. (One of the most oppressive things about Hokori is that if people's only way of dealng with it is a board wipe, if it had Lightning Greaves on or something, you get to untap before that player, play out a bunch of cards real fast, and then recast Hokori.)
Do you seriously believe that these well thought out and tested uses of Reliquary Tower are wrong?
I think this is the post that somes up what this thread is for.
Reliquary Tower is fantastic at what it does. It's just that what it does is not worth doing most of the time. Sure, the cost is low. But that cost can and will matter, especially if you are not doing something to take advantage of the effect.
A well built manabase is a fantastic thing. Reliquary Tower almost always makes the manabase worse.
If your reason for running Reliquary Tower comes down to "I might...." then you shouldn't be running it. If you just run a lot of card draw and end up with a lot of cards in hand, you still probably shouldn't be running it (You should be figuring out how to better deploy your resources rather than hoard them).
It's not that there aren't uses for the Tower. There are. It's just that they are far rarer than most people believe, and because the cost of running Tower is small (although not as small as it appears), many people run it when they shouldn't.
(Jin can play 2 mana rocks of various sizes so please let's not get stuck on pedantry)
Yes, absolutely. I think most people are bad at assessing the benefits of things like RT. Even some good players and decent deckbuilders will go "Remembr that time RT let me keep those 5 extra cards?" And forget about the time it inconvenienced their sequencing.
When Ancient Tomb is wrong, which it is in some very few decks, Scavenger Grounds and Blast Zone are both better. In a control shell with low color commitments, being able to blow out your opponent's graveyard or play a pernicious deed in the land slot are both better than maybe getting to hold extra cards.
While there are some decks that benefit from holding the extra cards, it's by far the exception. Most of those decks would gain more over the long haul from having a more stable manabase. Most manabases I see in EDH are very questionable. It's usually the last place people focus.
Slow, controlly decks make some sense to me at wanting it I guess, but there are so many cards that will get you out of a jam that you can run in those slots that I'd be more inclined toward that.
RT displays the "winmore fallacy" in EDH pretty well too; people are more inclined to play cards that are good in winning situations than in losing situations. Do you want a card you can topdeck that helps you close out a game when you're in great position (>7 cards) or do you want a card that you can topdeck when you have 3 cards and the graveyard guy is about to go off?
Anyway, don't intend any of this to come off as condescending. Dirk and OneRing made a couple good points about RT and places where it could be played.
But I stand 100% by my thesis that it's an OK card that's grossly overplayed and most people should re-think it with the printing of more powerful colorless lands in the last few years. Calling it an Excellent card is a stretch. It's Excellent in so few situations that it does a disservice to actually good cards to describe it that way
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Well, since the card is a land, the first question is, is it worth trading in a basic land? It might be, if you're in 0-2 colors, maybe even 3 colors if you don't have that many cards costing three mana of one color (or two mana each of two separate colors), but above that? Not so much. (And yes, you should use at least some basic lands even in five-color decks.)
The second question is much more complicated. Is it worth playing just on its own merits, not as something extra you sometimes get? I would say control decks are probably the only time it is. No other deck archetype depends on holding cards in your hand. It's irrelevant for aggro or combo, and it actively works against you if you're playing something like reanimator or dredge
On phasing:
well, even when playing decks where having cards in hand is important, having 20 cards makes most players phase out in their head, whereas 7 would keep them focused. EDH is a complex game as it is, but having to process 20 cards in hand to remember what sort of interactions would help them would overload 99% of all players, making them just blank even the most obvious plays/lines.
There's another really interesting thing about the land. All of you who use it, just make a paper note every single time you play it, and mark down every single time it's been relevant. I heard this method from some podcast (don't recall which/whom suggested it), but i started doing it, and after a month of playing, i realised that it's never been relevant, even when i play decks with a lot of card draw abilities.
I think like tstorm brings up though, there ARE relevant uses for it. It's just significantly more niche than many players would see it as.
All that said, I used to chuck it into all my decks, before i realised that it's actually making me play worse. I've since gotten rid of all of them, and i don't think i've ever missed them.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I'm on the same page as most of the thread. No max hand size is not a great effect and there are usually better cards that you could be running than Tower, but if you do want the effect it's probably tied with or slightly ahead of Thought Vessel as the best way to include it.
I think the only place I've run Tower in recent years is Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, for the sole reason that the deck was designed as an excessively Timmy list and ran Myojin of Life's Web along with green's big creature draw. Untapping and dropping 5-6 of the better enormous creatures would have been good enough most of the time, but it wasn't nearly as entertaining as dropping 15-20 of them and it was easier to hold a land drop than it was to hold up the 6-9 mana the enablers need at times.
If you're running more than a handful of 2 mana rocks you probably want ancient tomb because of the insane explosive starts you get.
While 70% of the feather decks out there run reliquary tower, 0% are running Scavenger Grounds which tells you something. That something is that people make bad choices. Because Feather does not need reliquary tower for literally anything.
*Budget* feather decks probably don't want ancient tomb. Because it costs 20 dollars.
WR is really horrible at ramping and most of the good stuff Feather wants to blink is fairly expensive, things like Sun Titan and Solemn and so on. And you want to cast multiple spells every turn. You know what enables that? Ramping +1 in your land slot
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After reflecting on it a lot I think the only decks I can think of that actually want a reliquary tower period are control shells or shells that have huge burst card draw. And a high percentage of those would probably like to reanimate stuff. Things like mono black goodstuff, or UWX spell based control (cards like spelltwine or Snapcaster Mage or similar).
Yuriko is kind of a special case in that it doesn't really want to cast big mana spells most of the time, but I'm not really sure about that. I would need to see a no-budget decklist but my gut instinct is that their color demands are going to be high enough that lots of colorless sources are not a great choice - and many Yuriko decks could benefit from reanimate, dread return, that kinda stuff.
The question of "vs strip mine" or "vs. ancient tomb" or 'vs. scavenger grounds" is mostly a thought exercise because lots of decks can run both if they want. But it gets much more constructive if you can think about decklists and how many colorless slots they have.
I'd be more than happy to analyze some decklists if people want to post specific ones where they think RQT is better than XX colorless land. But I really cannot imagine a time where all of these four generic ones would not come first, and I can't think of that many decks that want more than 4 colorless lands.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Arguing in favour of a land that makes colourless in a deck as drastically colour-intensive as Feather because opening a hand with a two-drop rock lets you play it turn one doesn't really check out, sorry. Note that the literal actual signet is the only one that nets you more than one coloured from this elaborate operation. I run Reliquary Tower as the only non-coloured land in my mana base.
That said, the sort of decks that want Reliquary Tower are indeed quite few and far in between. They're the ones that count on sheer card quantity to get the job done, or draw scarcely and massively. The opportunity cost of running it may be low, but that doesn't make it worth an automatic shoe-in.
In Edric, I run Aluren, and saving hordes of vulnerable evasive creatures in hand until the last possible moment keeps me from overcommitting to the board and protects them from sorcery speed removal. I also run Forbid, and keeping 5-6 basic lands in hand gives me plenty of buyback fodder.
In Feather, I want to cast the cards in hand over and over and over. Keeping three or four blink/indestructible/protection spells helps save my board and be able to respond with the appropriate one for any given threat. Having redundancy allows me to respond to their response. Keeping cantrips and scry cards helps me dig deeper. Keeping aggressive cards helps me to actually close out a game. If I had to cut down to seven each game, I would be hampered and have to keep the defensive ones (because the other cards do no good if I can't keep my board alive), slowing my gameplan to a crawl. Reliquary Tower is the only colorless utility land I run in Feather (the deck is very color-intensive), but it certainly earns its spot. Yeah, with all utility lands, I have to ask if it is worth the drawback of producing colorless or entering tapped. And most decks don't really need this effect. The ones that do, though, love this land. Decks that use Vedalken Orrery/Leyline of Anticipation/Alchemist's Refuge can often benefit from Reliquary Tower more than decks that don't. This analysis is a bit too reductive to be accurate. "Holding excess cards without playing them" is not the same thing as holding excess cards to play them at the right time. It may be win-more in the majority of decks, but in other decks, it is keep-from-losing. My examples above of Edric and Feather both generate massive amounts of card advantage, but they also rely on maintaining that card advantage to win. Edric has backup for his effect (Coastal Piracy/Bident of Thassa), so it doesn't really matter if he sticks, but I do need all of my evasive 1-2 drops to live. With Aluren out, Tower keeps them safe in hand until my opponent's end-step; without Aluren, I still have to keep some in hand so a board wipe doesn't kick me out of the game. Feather is a bit harder and more general-dependent because she has such a unique ability. And while I dislike decks that can't function without their commander, Reliquary Tower mitigates some of the problems by allowing me to keep both the cards that keep Feather alive and the cards that help me to win.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
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I agree that the slots are very tight in Feather, but AT is far more likely to fix your mana on time than RQT (signets, talismans, wayfarer's bauble, kor cartographer, armillary sphere, solemn, etc.). Having an ancient tomb is far more likely to do something good in the game.
That said, here is a short list of utility lands that are better than RQT in any Feather deck as a single colorless land:
And that's before we even get into whether you should cut it for another cheap mana producer/filtering. Is Reliquary tower better than Weathered wayfarer or sensei's divining top, or even Tithe? I seriously doubt it.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Here's what you're missing: there's no such thing as a "situationally excellent" magic card, at least not in a meaningful way. Most of the cards ever printed are perfect in some situations and useless in others. To be excellent in multiple situations at all is excellent period. Once again, I agree that people tossing it in decks because they think it's somehow good in a vacuum are wrong, but it's your job building a deck to make your cards reach that excellence. From my experience, Reliquary Tower can be used in decks in multiple archetypes where it shines exceptionally. You're trying to judge cards by what they do if you shove them in any random deck, demanding a card fit almost anywhere before you consider it good. There is no reason to care about how good a card is in decks that shouldn't play it, that's totally meaningless. You should evaluate cards by what they do in decks that are built in a way that maximize their potential.
In single colour? Nah, you're trying to maximize basic count for Gauntlets in an attempt to make up for the shortcomings of single colour. Tower hurts both your ability to make coloured mana on time, as well as works against said Gauntlet effect you wouldn't want to miss out on.
In three colour? Especially without green, you're surely going to want to devote most of those slots to fixing (and I play seven basics in 3c FWIW, three basics, three snow basics, and a wastes, optimally). You might have Strip Mine, Wasteland, and Cavern of Souls, is R-Tower really going to make the cut here over these lands? Highly unlikely. This scenario becomes more exasperated in 4c and 5c (which should at the very least play five basics - one of each) plus your duals, fetches, and you're barely gonna fit in a Strip Mine, let alone anything else.
This reserves R-Tower for 2c decks, but only if said deck wants to and has a need to hold such a copious amount of cards as well as the capacity to draw said cards. And if they can, why are they not casting them? If there's no reason then the deck trying to hold cards is playing inefficiently and the deck in question likely still doesn't need a Tower as much as the player needs to learn why they're holding cards when they shouldn't. Or, more accurately, the player needs to learn better resource management such that they're not pissing away cards or justifying an unneeded colourless land to help mitigate their resource mismanagement.
How so? Is it really keep-from-losing when you're staring at 1UG when you have a Counterspell to survive to the next turn that you can't use vs my Pyroclasm? How many protective spells does Feather, the Redeemed really need to hold? How many times will your opponents burn cards through protection on Feather, once they've already seen the answer? In this case, holding a bunch of protection spells are unneeded since they're doing the same thing and people aren't casting into your tricks once they know you have it.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I think you're misunderstanding my position. I don't think people who toss it random decks are wrong. I think almost everyone who plays it is wrong and very very few people who play it are actually assessing its quality in their deck correctly over playing an alternative card.
It's almost never excellent, and in very few situations it is pretty good. It will affect your chance of winning much less than playing any of a huge pile of other cards when it is drawn, ranging from spells that can replace lands (expedition map, for example) to better quality utility lands.
I don't believe that it "shines exceptionally" I believe that it sometimes is okay in some archetypes, and people are usually incorrectly assessing how good it is.
I think people are wildly bad at assessing how much it hurts them as well. It absolutely affects your mulligan percentage to a non-zero degree, as well as subsequent mana screw. I would not be at all surprised to see it lose more games than it wins overall (for most decks).
Edit: Hell, find me the most tuned deck with a reliquary tower and I'll give you 10 better things to play. The closest deck I can think of is Dirk's Phelddagrif deck and even in that I could completely take or leave it. I think his mana would be better with a UG canopy land in that slot and also it's just a better card.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I'm also kind of curious why you'd play half-snow-covered, but I guess there are no real downsides...and you're less vulnerable to wake of destruction? Or to take advantage of someone else's extraplanar lens regardless if they're playing snow or not? Or is there some other motivation I haven't thought of?
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6