The card is absurd in GW humans, but requires you to be exactly GW humans, which isn't something that you necessarily want to commit to P1P1. The main issue here is that unlike other powerful tribal cards worth going all in on P1P1 such Gisa and Geralf which will singlehandedly take over most games if it sticks and you have relevant zombies in the yard, this card will only singlehandedly take over a game in situations where Tenacity wins you the game. From my experience with tenacity, the card is amazing in a race situation or if your opponent doesn't play around it (Borrowed Grace exists in this format which means your opponent will tend to play around mass pumps more often than not), and can be dead in situations where your opponent has dominant board advantage through a big guy or fliers. This card is probably a 3.0 in pick order for me P1P1, and a 4.0 if I am already going towards GW humans. There is no way I would ever take this over just a premium common removal spell P1P1, but if I already think GW humans is open, then this is a pretty good reason to go into it.
Completely ignore the humans text and you still have a strong card as a 3/3 flash, lifelink, for 4. That's often going to be big enough to be able to ambush an attacker and generate card advantage. Now throw in the human thing and you have a 2nd way to potentially generate card advantage, and could even pull off a 3-for-1 w/o that much work. There are so many random humans in the set that you hardly need to be going dedicated GW humans to end up with a human or two in play.
IMO it is is a mistake to read this as a human tribal card and think that you need to force that specific archetype if you first pick this. Instead it's a card I'd be happy to first pick and play in any deck that can cast it, including as a splash in something like GBw delirium or GUw emerge. If you 1st pick it and do end up GW human aggro that's awesome, it's a true bomb in that scenario, but it is still a great card in any of the other decks that can cast it.
Completely ignore the humans text and you still have a strong card as a 3/3 flash, lifelink, for 4. That's often going to be big enough to be able to ambush an attacker and generate card advantage. Now throw in the human thing and you have a 2nd way to potentially generate card advantage, and could even pull off a 3-for-1 w/o that much work. There are so many random humans in the set that you hardly need to be going dedicated GW humans to end up with a human or two in play.
IMO it is is a mistake to read this as a human tribal card and think that you need to force that specific archetype if you first pick this. Instead it's a card I'd be happy to first pick and play in any deck that can cast it, including as a splash in something like GBw delirium or GUw emerge. If you 1st pick it and do end up GW human aggro that's awesome, it's a true bomb in that scenario, but it is still a great card in any of the other decks that can cast it.
Apologies for my misleadng comments on "exactly" GW humans. - I meant that the card requires you to be exactly GW humans for it to be absurd, it is still good in GW without dedicated humans, but it would be more on the 3.5 level as opposed to a 4.0. Regarding your comments about splashing, I disagree, and don't think that this card is worth splashing in the majority of decks. Don't get me wrong, I love splashing colors, but EDM doesn't seem like a format where you want to splash anything but very high impact cards due to the scarcity of mana fixing. The key phrase in your argument is "play in any deck that can cast it", and I think it's difficult to find such a deck, especially for something that will be a turn 6 3/3 lifelink/flash that may or may not pump some of your other creatures, which is still fine but not worth diluting your mana base.
I just don't see splashing as that difficult or uncommon in the grindy Gx decks. There isn't that much mana-fixing out there, but you tend to get passed what there is because other decks don't care about it.
This guy is just solid in the spells deck. Early mana excel to get you there, then suddenly you have a pretty decent threat that let's you get super value? He's a pretty high pick, but I'm not confident I'd take it over, say, Thermo-Alchemist, if I knew I was the spells deck. If you aren't confident you're in the spells deck, this only becomes *just* fine.
This guy is just solid in the spells deck. Early mana excel to get you there, then suddenly you have a pretty decent threat that let's you get super value? He's a pretty high pick, but I'm not confident I'd take it over, say, Thermo-Alchemist, if I knew I was the spells deck. If you aren't confident you're in the spells deck, this only becomes *just* fine.
Yeah, tough call. I think if you are in the really extreme version of the spells deck, with like 6-8 creatures and the rest spells then the Reader is probably better than the Alchemist. In that version you are going to reliably flip him quickly and get a ton of value out of the cost reduction and large prowess body on the other side.
But from what I've seen that extreme version of the deck is the exception, with it more commonly ending up like a 10-15 creature build that just plays a few more spells than your typical deck. With that in mind I think I'd regularly pick more reliable cards like the Alchemist over this through the first pack, and into the mid-late 2nd until I was sure I was going to be the super spell heavy version.
Curious Homunculus is clearly great in the heavy spells deck, but a 1/1 that ramps only instants and sorceries is pretty close to being unplayable. You need to flip this card very consistently in order for this card to warrant taking over Thermo-Alchemist, and I just don't see that happening that often. Let's do some simple math with the hypergeometric distribution.
Let's first get a base line idea for how often this card actually flips. Suppose you want to flip this card during, or before turn 6 on the play, which I think is a generous cutoff for it to be worth playing the card. What are the odds of drawing 3 spells by this time assuming X spells in your deck? Using our trusty hypergeometric distribution calculator, we get:
Now, this doesn't take into account cards that mill yourself or cantrip, or what the chances are that you actually cast these spells as opposed to having them in hand, but it's pretty easy to see that the card is going to be inconsistent in a deck with anything less than 10 spells, and that the card doesn't start to become consistent until you're in the 12+ spell range, and it probably isn't better than the alchemist until something like the 14 spell range. I would say that getting 14 good spells for the deck isn't necessarily an easy or common thing to do, I don't see a reasonable case for taking over the Alchemist in 95% of situations. Maybe if you already had 8 quality spells and it was early in pack 2 when this card shows up, but it seems silly to force yourself down that path when the alchemist is much more consistent in the average case, and will never be a total blank like this card can be in many situations.
In my experience it's decent if you have a lot of emerge synergy but really bad if you don't. A 4/4 isn't nearly as good in this format as it was in triple SOI.
I agree with the above, I do not like IT unless my deck has a few creatures which are good at being sacrificed, such as Enlightened Maniac. In my view IT has just too low of a board impact to justify a high cost of either 8 mana or sacrificing a decent creature.
I think IT gets significantly better the worse your deck becomes. I would not be happy saccing a Brazen Wolves or Shrill Howler to this, but I would be happy saccing a Woodland Patrol, for instance. Emerge is interesting in this way as it's effectiveness increases as you play more and more mediocre filler creatures. I think most decks in this format in a serious draft pod would almost always play the first IT, and that it's rare for your deck is so good that you don't have any creatures to sac to this card.
Meh, filler for the emerge deck that doesn't get many of the better emerge creatures. Does a nice job of filling that role because it is thoroughly unexciting in decks that aren't looking to enable emerge whereas most of the other emerge creatures are just high picks for any deck. This isn't completely unplayable outside of emerge decks, but an easy cut if space is crowded unless your deck has ways to take advantage of the 1/1's.
Worse than I initially thought, taking over the "worst emerge creature" title from Abundant Maw. That thing can be at least used to kill the opponent, and Mockery of Nature has better stats. Borderline playable in heavy token strategies.
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Seems like the typical 3 for a 3/3 green rare we get every set now, a good card that I'm ok first picking but not a bomb. Between flash and the pump this will usually function as a 2-for-1, although if you have to wait till later in the game to create that 2-for-1 then the 3/3 body loses value (versus having it out on turn 3).
Solid 3.5 tier creature. I wouldn't take this over the premium uncommons like Murder and the gang, but this is roughly as good or better than the top common in the set (Choking Restraints).
I like Spirit of the Hunt a whole lot, not quite over the best uncommons but better than the best commons. There are enough ground creatures it can eat on turn 3 to make the flash very powerful at times, and in a deck with a good number of other wolves it could provide great value later in the game.
Man Sigardian Priest is solid. Sometimes you're frustrated cause you can't tap down their bomb human that's wrecking your face, but there are so many non-human threats, and such good tempo swings that this guy can help with, that I honestly could care less. If I'm going white, I try to get two or even three of the pod will let me get away with it. If I'm not going white, seeing him late in the pack is a clear signal. Man I miss Gideon's Lawkeeper...
I like Abandon Reason in a deck which is at least somewhat aggressive and has some decent power creatures, and I would somewhat prioritize drafting it in that type of deck. It can cause a good blowout if attacking with two creatures but is more likely to be a one-for-one which is fine.
I don't think I've ever had this played against me, and I've seen it go around pretty late. I had a chance to play it in a W/R aggro deck the other day, and it was quite solid there, helping my guys punch through slightly larger blockers. Despite having a couple of madness outlets, I don't think I ever cast it for its madness cost.
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IMO it is is a mistake to read this as a human tribal card and think that you need to force that specific archetype if you first pick this. Instead it's a card I'd be happy to first pick and play in any deck that can cast it, including as a splash in something like GBw delirium or GUw emerge. If you 1st pick it and do end up GW human aggro that's awesome, it's a true bomb in that scenario, but it is still a great card in any of the other decks that can cast it.
Apologies for my misleadng comments on "exactly" GW humans. - I meant that the card requires you to be exactly GW humans for it to be absurd, it is still good in GW without dedicated humans, but it would be more on the 3.5 level as opposed to a 4.0. Regarding your comments about splashing, I disagree, and don't think that this card is worth splashing in the majority of decks. Don't get me wrong, I love splashing colors, but EDM doesn't seem like a format where you want to splash anything but very high impact cards due to the scarcity of mana fixing. The key phrase in your argument is "play in any deck that can cast it", and I think it's difficult to find such a deck, especially for something that will be a turn 6 3/3 lifelink/flash that may or may not pump some of your other creatures, which is still fine but not worth diluting your mana base.
Yeah, tough call. I think if you are in the really extreme version of the spells deck, with like 6-8 creatures and the rest spells then the Reader is probably better than the Alchemist. In that version you are going to reliably flip him quickly and get a ton of value out of the cost reduction and large prowess body on the other side.
But from what I've seen that extreme version of the deck is the exception, with it more commonly ending up like a 10-15 creature build that just plays a few more spells than your typical deck. With that in mind I think I'd regularly pick more reliable cards like the Alchemist over this through the first pack, and into the mid-late 2nd until I was sure I was going to be the super spell heavy version.
Let's first get a base line idea for how often this card actually flips. Suppose you want to flip this card during, or before turn 6 on the play, which I think is a generous cutoff for it to be worth playing the card. What are the odds of drawing 3 spells by this time assuming X spells in your deck? Using our trusty hypergeometric distribution calculator, we get:
Turn 6 on the play
7 spells - 30%
8 spells - 40%
9 spells - 50%
10 spells - 60%
11 spells - 67%
12 spells - 74%
13 - 81%
14 - 86%
15 - 89%
Now, this doesn't take into account cards that mill yourself or cantrip, or what the chances are that you actually cast these spells as opposed to having them in hand, but it's pretty easy to see that the card is going to be inconsistent in a deck with anything less than 10 spells, and that the card doesn't start to become consistent until you're in the 12+ spell range, and it probably isn't better than the alchemist until something like the 14 spell range. I would say that getting 14 good spells for the deck isn't necessarily an easy or common thing to do, I don't see a reasonable case for taking over the Alchemist in 95% of situations. Maybe if you already had 8 quality spells and it was early in pack 2 when this card shows up, but it seems silly to force yourself down that path when the alchemist is much more consistent in the average case, and will never be a total blank like this card can be in many situations.
I thing this is not the most horrid pick but I am not really wanting this to be my top emerge card.
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I am not going to leave this card in my sideboard if I draft it.