So I was looking at my prerelease cards and a pretty sick combo came to mind.
No idea what sort of deck it would fit into, but Elusive Tormentor with Neglected Heirloom attached, discard a card and he flips into Insidious Mist with Ashmouth Blade which is an unblockable 3/4 with hexproof, indestructible, and first strike. Which you could either leave it like that, or you could pay the 2 and 1 black to switch him back after the declare blockers phase to hit for 7.
Like I said I don't know where it would fit in but he'd be a pretty punishing beater that's really hard to remove from the board. Keep him as mist to duck removal and work their health down or flip him to swing in with 7.
I'm thinking a UB shell... start with 4x Tormentors and 4x Heirlooms then do 4x Anticipate and Jace VP to filter out the combo and some Read the Bones for card draw. Jace US for late game card draw. I also think Tormentor would partner well with Accursed Witch who is super nasty. Tie it all together with a removal package and a splash of counter spell and I think you'd be cooking. Could try and do some madness synergy since you'll be dumping cards to flip Tormentor back and forth.
Or you can do the following for a fun monoblack deck:
T1, land, neglected heirloom
T2, land, play heir of falkenrath
T3, land, play another heirloom, attach both neglected heirloom to the heir, discard, transform, transform both heirlooms and swing with a 9/8 flying first strike
T4, play elusive tormentor or whatever your fancy.
hmm I play four tormentors and four heir of falkenrath in my evasive vampires deck. It might be fun to drop some heirlooms in there. I guess two is the correct number with only eight value targets?
I don't get the point, you have a 3/4 hexproof indestructible unblockable creature on turn 5 and you go on to lose the game? It's a lot of work for nothing, and what happens when you don't assemble this meager combo?
I don't get the point, you have a 3/4 hexproof indestructible unblockable creature on turn 5 and you go on to lose the game?
what a fantastic premise for evaluating the power level of a card or combo. i suppose you could rule out a lot of ideas as bad if you add in the premise "and you go on to lose"
I don't get the point, you have a 3/4 hexproof indestructible unblockable creature on turn 5 and you go on to lose the game? It's a lot of work for nothing, and what happens when you don't assemble this meager combo?
I would leave it as mist until you have enough for uncaged fury and flip. Flip+sword+fury= 16 damage, pretty nasty. With the orginal flip you could cast fiery temper and hopefully something else happened before the start of the combo to get the remaining life.
Sorry, if your deck revolves around a middling combo it's going to lose. It's not even a combo or interaction, you could equip anything to mist, I made my statement because frankly this "interaction" seems largely pointless.
I agree it's not good, but your post didn't even so much as try to explain why it's not good. For the level of explanation you gave, you could literally tack that onto anything and claim it's bad.
"I don't get the point, you played a Tireless Tracker and then an Evolving Wilds, so you have 2 Clues on turn 4 and you go on to lose the game?"
"I don't get the point, you played Collected Company and found 2x Reflector Mage, so you bounced two guys on turn 4 and you go on to lose the game?"
"I don't get the point, you played a Knight of the White Orchid into Always Watching into Thalia's Lieutenant, so you have a 4/4 first strike vigilance and a 2/2 vigilance on turn 4 and you go on to lose the game?"
So on and so forth. What you listed isn't even bad -- 3/4 hexproof indestructible unblockable creature on turn 5 is pretty good in this metagame. It can flip into a friggin 7/7 to boot after it's successfully gone unblocked. That's actually really strong... and the investment isn't even that bad (Elusive Tormentor is borderline playable in Constructed as it is, Ashmouth Blade is probably playable in a deck that can reliably transform it, the mana investment is not that bad, and the combo even has some built-in resiliency since the Tormentor can protect itself). The issue isn't the two cards themselves, it's that there probably isn't a shell of other good cards that make maximal use of those two.
But your post didn't cover that, it's just bashing the attempt at making a building block for a deck without any serious elaboration on why aforesaid building block is bad or how it could be improved (or whether it can). For someone who fancies herself as a competitive player who takes pride in being able to help newer players develop themselves as deckbuilders and players, can't you do better than that?
No one is masquerading your examples as the basis of a deck, except your third example which actually warranted elaboration. Every post is reinforcing the idea this is the basis of a deck so I treated it as the basis of a deck. Like heirloom flips with a flipped creature, it doesn't even warrant anything, it's the card, it's not a combo, it's not even an interaction. No one can even say how this deck wins. I mean the one suggestion was to have more heirlooms and it makes it better? Minotaur was the only person with the suggestion to make a combo kill with Uncaged Fury, which doesnt event work because any kill spell you have to switch back to mist and suddenly its 8 damage on turn 5.
And whats to stop them from killing tormentor on turn 4? if you haven't presented any other targets before then they probably have removal in their hand. So you'd have to wait until turn 5 to protect her then TURN 6 to attack with her and if you managed to accumulate all 3 pieces of the combo she still has to flip to protect herself from a removal spell. And you have not mentioned any actual ways to find these cards. Anticipate and Jace are not tutors, why would you even bring a $300 investment into this deck when the core pieces dont even interact with him.
Your deck should be able to hold up to a mild criticization. The complaint is this combo, doesn't do anything, that's like the fundamental first hurdle you have to overcome, does the combo or interaction even do anything, and this doesnt, it does nothing. Yall talk about all these amazing cards you can add to the interaction and suddenly you have a 4 card combo that doesnt even win the game.
You can't even make a deck around heirloom, the only creature that can abuse it has 0 power. You need to take a lesson from bant hexproof. If you want to do some whacky hexproof combo you must have lifelink, it's the only way its viable, and even this combo is just far too slow. Turn 6 to START attacking unimpeded.
There's nothing left to say, there isn't a mild reason to fixate so long on this combo.
No one can even say how this deck wins. I mean the one suggestion was to have more heirlooms and it makes it better? Minotaur was the only person with the suggestion to make a combo kill with Uncaged Fury, which doesnt event work because any kill spell you have to switch back to mist and suddenly its 8 damage on turn 5.
And whats to stop them from killing tormentor on turn 4? if you haven't presented any other targets before then they probably have removal in their hand. So you'd have to wait until turn 5 to protect her then TURN 6 to attack with her and if you managed to accumulate all 3 pieces of the combo she still has to flip to protect herself from a removal spell. And you have not mentioned any actual ways to find these cards. Anticipate and Jace are not tutors, why would you even bring a $300 investment into this deck when the core pieces dont even interact with him.
Your deck should be able to hold up to a mild criticization. The complaint is this combo, doesn't do anything, that's like the fundamental first hurdle you have to overcome, does the combo or interaction even do anything, and this doesnt, it does nothing. Yall talk about all these amazing cards you can add to the interaction and suddenly you have a 4 card combo that doesnt even win the game.
You can't even make a deck around heirloom, the only creature that can abuse it has 0 power. You need to take a lesson from bant hexproof. If you want to do some whacky hexproof combo you must have lifelink, it's the only way its viable, and even this combo is just far too slow. Turn 6 to START attacking unimpeded.
There's nothing left to say, there isn't a mild reason to fixate so long on this combo.
And THAT'S the sort of thing you should have said in the first place.
No one can even say how this deck wins. I mean the one suggestion was to have more heirlooms and it makes it better? Minotaur was the only person with the suggestion to make a combo kill with Uncaged Fury, which doesnt event work because any kill spell you have to switch back to mist and suddenly its 8 damage on turn 5.
And whats to stop them from killing tormentor on turn 4? if you haven't presented any other targets before then they probably have removal in their hand. So you'd have to wait until turn 5 to protect her then TURN 6 to attack with her and if you managed to accumulate all 3 pieces of the combo she still has to flip to protect herself from a removal spell. And you have not mentioned any actual ways to find these cards. Anticipate and Jace are not tutors, why would you even bring a $300 investment into this deck when the core pieces dont even interact with him.
Your deck should be able to hold up to a mild criticization. The complaint is this combo, doesn't do anything, that's like the fundamental first hurdle you have to overcome, does the combo or interaction even do anything, and this doesnt, it does nothing. Yall talk about all these amazing cards you can add to the interaction and suddenly you have a 4 card combo that doesnt even win the game.
You can't even make a deck around heirloom, the only creature that can abuse it has 0 power. You need to take a lesson from bant hexproof. If you want to do some whacky hexproof combo you must have lifelink, it's the only way its viable, and even this combo is just far too slow. Turn 6 to START attacking unimpeded.
There's nothing left to say, there isn't a mild reason to fixate so long on this combo.
And THAT'S the sort of thing you should have said in the first place.
I thought the "and go on to lose the game" said plenty. It was all the analysis that was needed.
I thought the "and go on to lose the game" said plenty. It was all the analysis that was needed.
Well, you're clearly a more experienced player than I. All that comment said to me was that this is a bad deck - it didn't say why or how. If you refer to the original poster who lost the game, that still didn't say anything to me. Read all the tier 1 threads: people post reports of their matches, and sometimes they lose. A loss tells me nothing about a deck, hence why someone like me needs more information, and more critical analysis.
Does it take that much analysis? Turn 5 3/4 that costs 3 cards. Turn 5 you should be doing much better.
And what deck? There's no deck. No one's posted a deck. It's a 2 cards.
My advice, if you really want to play with Neglected Heirloom/Ashmouth Blade, play Werewolves where the transforms are free. I'm not saying Werewolves needs or wants this card, but if you need or want it, that's probably the best place for it.
I'm running those in RB vampire tribal with a little madness subtheme and it's pretty fun, though quite casual obviously. Neglected Heirloom has plenty of hosts so it generally provides a punch with or without Elusive Tormentor (I only run 2). Kicked some booty with it last weekend around the kitchen table.
This equipment card is aggressively costed and therefore should be aggressively played.
A turn 2-3 flip and attack is ideal,
An unblockable and untargetable 3/4 on turn 4 is not, my standard deck can have someone almost dead on that turn.
Stop trying to be Johnnys Timmys, Spike is here to ruin your day, it can happen but you'll never get it to happen unless your opponent is playing a deck of potato chips.
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The red mage lives by the variance and dies by the variance. May the variance be with you, always.
GB Neglected Heirloom was one of the first decks I tried to brew. Taking advantage of the powerful 2 drop werewolves + heir of falkenrath and with instant speed combat tricks to support the werewolves transformation. The deck was fun and could have explosive turns for example attacking with a 10/7 lifelink or a 6/5 flying first strike on t3.
The problem of course is that this strategy suffers from the same problems that Hardened Scales and Assault Formation had. If you have it, you can win. If you don't have it, you will likely lose since you're playing average creatures and have no top end finish or even a good curve.
Now about Elusive Tormentor. I like him a lot. I'm convinced this card is constructed playable. But it's only a control win condition. You don't need to equip him with Neglected Heirloom, he can easily win games on his own. You just needs loads of removal, counters and board wipes, then drop him late game and he'll punch through like a creeping tar pit with hexproof and indestructible. But we might need to wait for the dragons and languish to rotate before people start experimenting wth him more in control decks.
I actually was able to get this combo out on the field in my last draft. It was a very big play in limited, but I also agree with most of the people here that it's not fast enough in standard to be competitive. The nifty thing about Neglected Heirloom is that its transform trigger is if the creature it is attached to transforms. A human to werewolf transformation will trigger it, but so will a werewolf transforming back into a human. I've put it to good use in the past by casting and attaching it to an already transformed werewolf to allow that creature to keep applying pressure if an opponent casts two spells and causes it to transform back to its human side.
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No idea what sort of deck it would fit into, but Elusive Tormentor with Neglected Heirloom attached, discard a card and he flips into Insidious Mist with Ashmouth Blade which is an unblockable 3/4 with hexproof, indestructible, and first strike. Which you could either leave it like that, or you could pay the 2 and 1 black to switch him back after the declare blockers phase to hit for 7.
Like I said I don't know where it would fit in but he'd be a pretty punishing beater that's really hard to remove from the board. Keep him as mist to duck removal and work their health down or flip him to swing in with 7.
WUBEsper ControlWUB
WUBEsper ControlWUB
T1, land, neglected heirloom
T2, land, play heir of falkenrath
T3, land, play another heirloom, attach both neglected heirloom to the heir, discard, transform, transform both heirlooms and swing with a 9/8 flying first strike
T4, play elusive tormentor or whatever your fancy.
T1: neglected heirloom
T2: Heir of Falkenrath
T3: Flip,attack and cast this sweetnessUncaged Fury
Uncaged fury could be massive, maybe some rouge passages?
I really like it.
what a fantastic premise for evaluating the power level of a card or combo. i suppose you could rule out a lot of ideas as bad if you add in the premise "and you go on to lose"
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
I would leave it as mist until you have enough for uncaged fury and flip. Flip+sword+fury= 16 damage, pretty nasty. With the orginal flip you could cast fiery temper and hopefully something else happened before the start of the combo to get the remaining life.
Good catch, unleash the beast on t4. I just wonder how to get a deck, I like the combo and everything, but we need another win condition.
"I don't get the point, you played a Tireless Tracker and then an Evolving Wilds, so you have 2 Clues on turn 4 and you go on to lose the game?"
"I don't get the point, you played Collected Company and found 2x Reflector Mage, so you bounced two guys on turn 4 and you go on to lose the game?"
"I don't get the point, you played a Knight of the White Orchid into Always Watching into Thalia's Lieutenant, so you have a 4/4 first strike vigilance and a 2/2 vigilance on turn 4 and you go on to lose the game?"
So on and so forth. What you listed isn't even bad -- 3/4 hexproof indestructible unblockable creature on turn 5 is pretty good in this metagame. It can flip into a friggin 7/7 to boot after it's successfully gone unblocked. That's actually really strong... and the investment isn't even that bad (Elusive Tormentor is borderline playable in Constructed as it is, Ashmouth Blade is probably playable in a deck that can reliably transform it, the mana investment is not that bad, and the combo even has some built-in resiliency since the Tormentor can protect itself). The issue isn't the two cards themselves, it's that there probably isn't a shell of other good cards that make maximal use of those two.
But your post didn't cover that, it's just bashing the attempt at making a building block for a deck without any serious elaboration on why aforesaid building block is bad or how it could be improved (or whether it can). For someone who fancies herself as a competitive player who takes pride in being able to help newer players develop themselves as deckbuilders and players, can't you do better than that?
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
And whats to stop them from killing tormentor on turn 4? if you haven't presented any other targets before then they probably have removal in their hand. So you'd have to wait until turn 5 to protect her then TURN 6 to attack with her and if you managed to accumulate all 3 pieces of the combo she still has to flip to protect herself from a removal spell. And you have not mentioned any actual ways to find these cards. Anticipate and Jace are not tutors, why would you even bring a $300 investment into this deck when the core pieces dont even interact with him.
Your deck should be able to hold up to a mild criticization. The complaint is this combo, doesn't do anything, that's like the fundamental first hurdle you have to overcome, does the combo or interaction even do anything, and this doesnt, it does nothing. Yall talk about all these amazing cards you can add to the interaction and suddenly you have a 4 card combo that doesnt even win the game.
You can't even make a deck around heirloom, the only creature that can abuse it has 0 power. You need to take a lesson from bant hexproof. If you want to do some whacky hexproof combo you must have lifelink, it's the only way its viable, and even this combo is just far too slow. Turn 6 to START attacking unimpeded.
There's nothing left to say, there isn't a mild reason to fixate so long on this combo.
And THAT'S the sort of thing you should have said in the first place.
Well, you're clearly a more experienced player than I. All that comment said to me was that this is a bad deck - it didn't say why or how. If you refer to the original poster who lost the game, that still didn't say anything to me. Read all the tier 1 threads: people post reports of their matches, and sometimes they lose. A loss tells me nothing about a deck, hence why someone like me needs more information, and more critical analysis.
And what deck? There's no deck. No one's posted a deck. It's a 2 cards.
My advice, if you really want to play with Neglected Heirloom/Ashmouth Blade, play Werewolves where the transforms are free. I'm not saying Werewolves needs or wants this card, but if you need or want it, that's probably the best place for it.
A turn 2-3 flip and attack is ideal,
An unblockable and untargetable 3/4 on turn 4 is not, my standard deck can have someone almost dead on that turn.
Stop trying to be Johnnys Timmys, Spike is here to ruin your day, it can happen but you'll never get it to happen unless your opponent is playing a deck of potato chips.
The problem of course is that this strategy suffers from the same problems that Hardened Scales and Assault Formation had. If you have it, you can win. If you don't have it, you will likely lose since you're playing average creatures and have no top end finish or even a good curve.
Now about Elusive Tormentor. I like him a lot. I'm convinced this card is constructed playable. But it's only a control win condition. You don't need to equip him with Neglected Heirloom, he can easily win games on his own. You just needs loads of removal, counters and board wipes, then drop him late game and he'll punch through like a creeping tar pit with hexproof and indestructible. But we might need to wait for the dragons and languish to rotate before people start experimenting wth him more in control decks.