Interesting. I suspect that as a vanilla 3 damage, it's better in Draft than in Sealed, so I would still pick it highly. Of course, if you have multiple artifacts out then it becomes more of a splashable red Murder.
About as close to good filler (2.0) as you can get in this set. A 3 mana 3/2 is rather small in this format with Thriving Rhino and vanilla 4 mana 3/4s running around, so you really need the ability to make the card relevant in order to be happy playing it. This card's ability is great in a board stall where your opponent needs to block with a bunch of smaller dudes, but costs too much mana to play early, and has a mediocre body. It's still pretty good filler if you could use another 3 drop, but I can see this being replaced in decks that have good 3s, and with Thriving Rhino in that slot, that probably happens a non-trivial amount of the time.
Yeah, pretty medium. Seems like it really wants to go in a deck with larger vehicles, where you don't want to invest a lot in an attack only to get it chumped by a servo. But that is a pretty niche role to excel in. The kind of card that will randomly win you games, which is nice for a 3-mana 3/2, but too inconsistent to make this a card I'm really prioritizing.
I actually think this card is more on the bad side of things. The ability often just doesn't do anything, and even when it does it's pretty costly mana-wise so it can cost you tempo. It was just a vanilla 3/2 when I saw it played at the prerelease, which is below average. I'm sure there are match-ups where it can be useful, but it's the sort of card I would rather side in than start in the main.
In some cases this could be better than Cancel, but normally it will be worse. And Cancel wasn't great to begin with. I can't imagine this will be disappearing from packs very early.
The upsides of returning a sweet EtB card is mitigated by the downsides where you need to return a land or a dude for no value to cast your Cancel. This is probably slightly worse on average, and since cancel is mediocre filler tier (1.5), I can't see this card being much better.
About 1/3 of the commons and uncommons (and 1/4 of the rares/mythics) in the set have ETB abilities, between energy, Fabricate, and other random stuff. That means a completely average deck with ~21 commons/uncommons in it will have around 7 cards in their deck they can bounce for moderate value.
I think that makes this pretty decent, overall. Not great by any means, but I think in the average case I would rather have this than Cancel.
The upsides of returning a sweet EtB card is mitigated by the downsides where you need to return a land or a dude for no value to cast your Cancel. This is probably slightly worse on average, and since cancel is mediocre filler tier (1.5), I can't see this card being much better.
Agreed. This is probably better than Cancel when you really want to be using your 3-mana counters, in the late game to counter a bomb/removal spell. But it will be SO much worse on turns 3-4 that I think it probably more than offsets the advantage later. If you get a slower draw this is virtually unplayable on turn 3 as your first play of the game, a major drawback vs Cancel, which you could at least just trade off with their 3-drop to stay in the game.
And while there are a TON of ETB effects in the set, most of them are minor enough that they don't make a big difference for me. Getting one extra servo or 2 energy isn't that big of a game, not enough to offset this big downside when you wish you didn't have to return something. Now in a deck with 2 x Cloudchaser, a big time payoff...heck yeah, I'm happy to run one of these.
In draft I wouldn't want to main one of these outside of that dream 2xCloudchaser kind of scenario. Although there will be slower matchups, or crazy bombs, that you want to board it in for.
In sealed I wouldn't mind playing one main, although it wouldn't be a priority. If I'm in blue I'll consider it, but it wouldn't draw me to blue.
I think it's better than Cancel but the extent to which this set seems very unfriendly to cancel is the bigger concern.
That's part of the problem too. Looks like basically every color but blue is capable of some strong curve outs, which would already make a Cancel less appealing...and now you are taking Cancel and saying it is virtually unplayable in the early turns.
This is a 3.0 in decks where you are guaranteed to get an artifact by turn 4, a 2.5 in decks where you can only get an artifact 50% of the time by turn 4, and a 1.5 in decks with a 20% of getting an artifact in that time. A 3/2 deathtouch is extremely high impact, but a 2/2 bear is very bad filler in this format. The spread puts it at probably a 2.5 on average, where you're happy taking it as early as pick 4 with the understanding that it won't be great in some decks (GB midrange/counters comes to mind in particular) but has the potential to be the best 2 drop in your deck.
Unlike Sky Skiff, Renegade Freighter makes it worthwhile to use another creature to crew it up (albeit the skiff is crew 1 while this is crew 2). A 5/4 trample somewhat early in the game is a big deal.
I've been impressed so far. Easy to crew and hits like a ton of bricks for a common 3-drop. Can put opponents in really tough spots, especially if you are on the play, as they might be forced to double-block and walk into one of the set's numerous strong combat tricks.
I said earlier that I wouldn't be surprised if this was the best common in the set, and it delivers. Having played with the set a little bit, I think the only other common you would consider taking over this P1P1 is Welding Sparks. Turns out that Revoke Privileges is not better than the sparks in a set with vehicles and plenty of maindeckable ways to deal with aura based removal spells. The freighter just adds so much pressure to your opponent, and it being colorless slots it into way more decks than a colored card.
The nifty thing that plays into this being first pickable is that you need rarebombs so bad to play control in this format imo. And with this the only thing your committing to is being aggressive (and as others have said, it's not like, Carnophage commitment to aggressive or something), but if your p1p1 didn't offer you a rarebomb you probably want to opt out of control for aggression anyway. EMN was pretty different in that finishers like Wretched Gryff were at common and praying for Ongoing Investigation in pack 3 instead of waiting for a conformation you'd have that enchantment was just how the format worked, so you might not want to commit to aggression early even if the p1p1 wasn't a rarebomb.
Bad filler (1.0) in non-green decks, and solid playable if you are in green (2.5). Green doesn't have any inherent synergies with artifacts so it being an artifact isn't as useful, but a 2/1 conditional deathtouch is relevant enough at all stages of the game that you wouldn't cut this unless your deck was very good. There are also not that many ping effects to punish it.
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I certainty did.
I think that makes this pretty decent, overall. Not great by any means, but I think in the average case I would rather have this than Cancel.
Agreed. This is probably better than Cancel when you really want to be using your 3-mana counters, in the late game to counter a bomb/removal spell. But it will be SO much worse on turns 3-4 that I think it probably more than offsets the advantage later. If you get a slower draw this is virtually unplayable on turn 3 as your first play of the game, a major drawback vs Cancel, which you could at least just trade off with their 3-drop to stay in the game.
And while there are a TON of ETB effects in the set, most of them are minor enough that they don't make a big difference for me. Getting one extra servo or 2 energy isn't that big of a game, not enough to offset this big downside when you wish you didn't have to return something. Now in a deck with 2 x Cloudchaser, a big time payoff...heck yeah, I'm happy to run one of these.
In draft I wouldn't want to main one of these outside of that dream 2xCloudchaser kind of scenario. Although there will be slower matchups, or crazy bombs, that you want to board it in for.
In sealed I wouldn't mind playing one main, although it wouldn't be a priority. If I'm in blue I'll consider it, but it wouldn't draw me to blue.
That's part of the problem too. Looks like basically every color but blue is capable of some strong curve outs, which would already make a Cancel less appealing...and now you are taking Cancel and saying it is virtually unplayable in the early turns.