OK, let me preface this by saying I know most of these cards are jank. I'm not trying to be that smart guy who sneaks in some secret tech and all of a sudden everyone is siding in some forgotten about crappy card. That said, please try to be as objective as possible when analyzing these points as they are meant to spark discussion, not another entire thread full of "leave it on the kitchen table d00d" or "waste of time. next." I do plan on playtesting these cards but I wanted to get the community's opinion first. I'm pretty terrible at analyzing cards on paper (no pun intended) so I just wanted to see if anyone had experience with these "janky" cards? Are some of them hidden gems or are they still just as terrible as they were expected to be when released?
NOTE: A lot of these cards I was picturing specifically to fit into a Grixis control list but any playtesting experience you might have is obviously welcome.
Charmbreaker Devils - I know in a post-titan world of MTG, most 6-drops without an ETB ability are automatically considered unplayable. However, the CA this guy could provide is ridiculous. I honestly don't think his 2nd ability is worth much except when you're ready to alpha strike but getting all your removal and counters back seems like it could get out of hand fast. Sure this guy dies to Mizzium Mortars, Victim of Night, and Ultimate Price, but is he too slow/ineffectual to be a SB option vs aggro running no removal or very little? In my grixis control, sometimes I manage to keep a RDW/Boros deck at bay but right around turn 6 we both have empty hands. So the game turns into can he draw his haste creature first or will I draw my finisher/more removal? This guy could break the stalemate. Although, staff of nin is at the same CMC and has a higher chance of sticking around.
Mystic Retrieval - Don't laugh - this is without a doubt the crappiest card I will be mentioning but it intrigues me nonetheless. I was just looking for cards that could help me gain an advantage out of the "negative" effects of thoughtflare and desperate ravings and found this. By turn 8+ it almost acts as a mystical tutor and even though the mana cost is intense it won't matter a whole lot by then. But before that point is it too much of a "do-nothing" card? Plus, its a sorcery.
Tower Geist - I've been running augur of bolas for a long time and he suddenly showed up in almost every deck this weekend; clearly he has a good effect. This guy is very similar with some glaring advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, he can never "whiff," you don't have to reveal the card and there are no restrictions on its type, and he has flying. On the other, his mana cost of 4 is rough and he only has 2 toughness so he isn't the aggro-hoser that augur is. It's also worth noting that the card you don't pick goes to the GY instead of the bottom of your library which could be good or bad depending on the build.
Archaeomancer - Yet another cantrip of sorts, this guy has similar effects to Augur and tower geist. With his wimpy body and casting cost of 4 he doesn't really do a whole lot but it still could provide some decent stall vs. midrange. A chump block + get back your mutilate or devour flesh or whatever is needed at the moment. 4 mana is probably too much but you can't deny that ability is pretty good.
Spelltwine - Did I say mystic retrieval was going to be the most obviously terrible card I'd be discussing? Well this one seems pretty bad but it does have it's situational moments. I'll come right out with the reasons why this card probably sucks: it targets, so if your opponent isn't playing instants/sorceries you straight up can't cast this. And at 6 mana, you better have something that costs at least 4 in your GY (as that would be the cost of snapcaster-ing it back even though you don't get the body) or you better know what your opponent is playing. I know a lot of you will say any card that relies on what your opponent is playing is bad, but does this have a shot of being SB tech? Exiling your opponents lingering souls and then casting your own mutilate/verdict/terminus on top of it (having the sweeper resolve first) seems like a strong control play. Still though, its extremely situational, expensive, and sorcery speed.
So as you can tell most of these cards have to do with getting stuff back from the graveyard and/or cantripping in some way. I've done the theorycrafting, has anyone actually playtested these? I'm definitely throwing the charmbreakers in my grixis list and that will be what I test first so I'll report back with some results.
Any other potential sleepers you guys want to discuss? I hope I don't draw too much criticism because some of these cards will never be good but I wanted to get people to think beyond the "staples." I know staples are staples for a reason but I'm sure you can remember at least one card that was dismissed as jank and ended up seeing play in a new meta.
I would just playtest them and see if it works or not. But I don't think the metagame has changed enough to warrant any of the cards being good. Charmbreaker still suffers from "it dies to removal"-itis. The metagame is still pretty removal heavy and pretty unfriendly to big creatures. That's why the only creatures that get played at more than 4 CMC are either extremely resilient (Aristocrat) or have a great comes into play ability (AoS, Resto), or do their damage fast (Thundermaw).
Charmbreaker Devils isn't good because it is random. If it had been targetted it would have been a lot better. I played it to some success in Scars/Innistrad Standard, in a deck where my only targets were Timely Reinforcements and Day of Judgment, but there isn't anything quite as unconditionally good as recurring Timely in Standard right now. Charmbreaker is actually just horrible because any deck that would want to play it would also want to be playing Farseek, and recurring Farseeks is the least exciting thing you can be doing, unless you're REALLY trying to Sphinx's Revelation for an actual million.
Tower Geist has the potential as you say, but at the end of the day it's got two big problems. First, it's four mana. It's substantially easier in U/x to play Augur of Bolas at four lands and find an instant you can play on your opponent's turn for control; you can't do that with TG until turn 6 or 7 if that. Second, it's 2/2. AB can survive Pillar of Flame and block bears like a pro, but anything kills TG. AB and Snapcaster Mage are better U/x support; TG is ill-suited for constructed play.
This is going to seem to be an odd answer but hopefully you'll get what I'm driving at.
Back in the mid 90s, 2 cards came out. One was bad. The other was downright "what the **** do we do with this?" You could have gotten either of them for the cost of a cup of coffee.
Today, they are both going for over $60 a pop and considered Legacy staples.
The point is, you never know what standard legal card, no matter how bad it looks, is going to become a staple of the format.
Generally speaking, creature auras are considered unplayable because you risk getting 2 for 1'd.
And then they made hexproof and suddenly, with something like Ethereal Armor we have a real deck that actually put up some numbers. In fact, one tournament, this deck made it into the finals by both players.
A deck with a bunch of auras.
Who would have ever thunk it?
As for the cards you've listed, I have no idea. Maybe there's something out there that nobody's spotted that makes one or more of these cards playable. You'll just have to go through what's in the current standard and see what you can come up with.
Objectively, I evaluate cards as if they stand on their own. Auger will still be a 1/3 for two mana even if he whiffs - not great, but serviceable. None of those cards you mention are able to do that. Four mana for a 1/2 or a 2/2 flyer? Six for a 4/4? Playing a four-mana sorcery to get back a two-mana instant? Paying six-mana to replay a four-mana spell? No thanks. Their potential additional value doesn't outweigh their costs.
I'm curious why you would bring up these specific cards and then preemptively chastise any potential criticism. I think you would have been better served had you brought up Kessig Wolf Run or Skirsdag High Priest as both of those cards had been cast aside leading into Montreal. (I still say the High Priest is terrible in a format chock full of removal, but . . . What the hell, Martell just won the PT.)
I like Retrieval in a deck with Goblin Electromancer and/or Arcane Melee. Tower Geist is nice in a Seance control deck. Spelltwine is a nice sideboard card. As for the others, they have too slow of an impact to be very good in Standard... Archaeomancer is pretty tech with Ghostly Flicker in pauper because of Mulldrifter and Glimmerpost, and Devils is great in EDH where no one ever has removal at the right time, but they don't really do much in standard.
'Bad' cards I want to see in the Standard scene; Mikaeus the Lunarch, Chalice of Life
I like Retrieval in a deck with Goblin Electromancer and/or Arcane Melee. Tower Geist is nice in a Seance control deck. Spelltwine is a nice sideboard card. As for the others, they have too slow of an impact to be very good in Standard... Archaeomancer is pretty tech with Ghostly Flicker in pauper because of Mulldrifter and Glimmerpost, and Devils is great in EDH where no one ever has removal at the right time, but they don't really do much in standard.
'Bad' cards I want to see in the Standard scene; Mikaeus the Lunarch, Chalice of Life
Archeomancer actually plays a pretty big role in that "Human Standard Eggs" deck.
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Thoughts on a few of the cards mentioned and a few of my own...
-Mikaeus, the Lunarch is an interesting card for decks with a +1/+1 counter subtheme. Decks using evolve creatures have a chronic tendency to either get blowouts with nut draws or never have a prayer with a slow starting hand. By filling out the curve at any point in the game and being a big body to keep up pressure post-wrath, I find that you get a lot more consistency.
-Charmbreaker Devils just isn't going to work, sadly. It isn't the random retrieval that kills it so much as the lack of effect on the turn it hits, which is unacceptable from a 6-drop. Even then, it can be chump blocked and doesn't really have a home in the first place. I love the card and have a soft spot for it, but it's not constructed playable.
-Tower Geist hasn't been half bad in most of my budget decks, particularly Seance. For 1 mana less, it isn't as far from Mulldrifter as you might think in decks with any sort of recursion. Competitively, it doesn't have a home due to Forbidden Alchemy and the fact that control decks aren't even playing creatures anymore, but you certainly could do a lot worse.
-I want Bloodgift Demon to be good so badly. Arena on an on-curve flying beatstick will always be awesome, but it has the same problem that Devils had, and there's a glut of other cards it has to compete with when every control deck is at least 3 colors.
-I want to break Jar of Eyeballs in one of the new Standard Eggs decklists. Got death triggers? Then you've got a repeatable tutor engine. If only there was an easier way to loop it...
-Splinterfright is one of my favorite cards ever printed. With Deathrite Shaman not making a huge Standard showing and Grisly Salvage as an enabler, maybe it's time for a comeback...
NOTE: A lot of these cards I was picturing specifically to fit into a Grixis control list but any playtesting experience you might have is obviously welcome.
Charmbreaker Devils - I know in a post-titan world of MTG, most 6-drops without an ETB ability are automatically considered unplayable. However, the CA this guy could provide is ridiculous. I honestly don't think his 2nd ability is worth much except when you're ready to alpha strike but getting all your removal and counters back seems like it could get out of hand fast. Sure this guy dies to Mizzium Mortars, Victim of Night, and Ultimate Price, but is he too slow/ineffectual to be a SB option vs aggro running no removal or very little? In my grixis control, sometimes I manage to keep a RDW/Boros deck at bay but right around turn 6 we both have empty hands. So the game turns into can he draw his haste creature first or will I draw my finisher/more removal? This guy could break the stalemate. Although, staff of nin is at the same CMC and has a higher chance of sticking around.
Mystic Retrieval - Don't laugh - this is without a doubt the crappiest card I will be mentioning but it intrigues me nonetheless. I was just looking for cards that could help me gain an advantage out of the "negative" effects of thoughtflare and desperate ravings and found this. By turn 8+ it almost acts as a mystical tutor and even though the mana cost is intense it won't matter a whole lot by then. But before that point is it too much of a "do-nothing" card? Plus, its a sorcery.
Tower Geist - I've been running augur of bolas for a long time and he suddenly showed up in almost every deck this weekend; clearly he has a good effect. This guy is very similar with some glaring advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, he can never "whiff," you don't have to reveal the card and there are no restrictions on its type, and he has flying. On the other, his mana cost of 4 is rough and he only has 2 toughness so he isn't the aggro-hoser that augur is. It's also worth noting that the card you don't pick goes to the GY instead of the bottom of your library which could be good or bad depending on the build.
Archaeomancer - Yet another cantrip of sorts, this guy has similar effects to Augur and tower geist. With his wimpy body and casting cost of 4 he doesn't really do a whole lot but it still could provide some decent stall vs. midrange. A chump block + get back your mutilate or devour flesh or whatever is needed at the moment. 4 mana is probably too much but you can't deny that ability is pretty good.
Spelltwine - Did I say mystic retrieval was going to be the most obviously terrible card I'd be discussing? Well this one seems pretty bad but it does have it's situational moments. I'll come right out with the reasons why this card probably sucks: it targets, so if your opponent isn't playing instants/sorceries you straight up can't cast this. And at 6 mana, you better have something that costs at least 4 in your GY (as that would be the cost of snapcaster-ing it back even though you don't get the body) or you better know what your opponent is playing. I know a lot of you will say any card that relies on what your opponent is playing is bad, but does this have a shot of being SB tech? Exiling your opponents lingering souls and then casting your own mutilate/verdict/terminus on top of it (having the sweeper resolve first) seems like a strong control play. Still though, its extremely situational, expensive, and sorcery speed.
So as you can tell most of these cards have to do with getting stuff back from the graveyard and/or cantripping in some way. I've done the theorycrafting, has anyone actually playtested these? I'm definitely throwing the charmbreakers in my grixis list and that will be what I test first so I'll report back with some results.
Any other potential sleepers you guys want to discuss? I hope I don't draw too much criticism because some of these cards will never be good but I wanted to get people to think beyond the "staples." I know staples are staples for a reason but I'm sure you can remember at least one card that was dismissed as jank and ended up seeing play in a new meta.
.
.
Charmbreaker Devils isn't good because it is random. If it had been targetted it would have been a lot better. I played it to some success in Scars/Innistrad Standard, in a deck where my only targets were Timely Reinforcements and Day of Judgment, but there isn't anything quite as unconditionally good as recurring Timely in Standard right now. Charmbreaker is actually just horrible because any deck that would want to play it would also want to be playing Farseek, and recurring Farseeks is the least exciting thing you can be doing, unless you're REALLY trying to Sphinx's Revelation for an actual million.
Because we care about facts.
Back in the mid 90s, 2 cards came out. One was bad. The other was downright "what the **** do we do with this?" You could have gotten either of them for the cost of a cup of coffee.
Today, they are both going for over $60 a pop and considered Legacy staples.
Show And Tell
Lion's Eye Diamond
The point is, you never know what standard legal card, no matter how bad it looks, is going to become a staple of the format.
Generally speaking, creature auras are considered unplayable because you risk getting 2 for 1'd.
And then they made hexproof and suddenly, with something like Ethereal Armor we have a real deck that actually put up some numbers. In fact, one tournament, this deck made it into the finals by both players.
A deck with a bunch of auras.
Who would have ever thunk it?
As for the cards you've listed, I have no idea. Maybe there's something out there that nobody's spotted that makes one or more of these cards playable. You'll just have to go through what's in the current standard and see what you can come up with.
Anything is possible.
I'm curious why you would bring up these specific cards and then preemptively chastise any potential criticism. I think you would have been better served had you brought up Kessig Wolf Run or Skirsdag High Priest as both of those cards had been cast aside leading into Montreal. (I still say the High Priest is terrible in a format chock full of removal, but . . . What the hell, Martell just won the PT.)
Also in same category is Creeping Renaissance
I like Retrieval in a deck with Goblin Electromancer and/or Arcane Melee. Tower Geist is nice in a Seance control deck. Spelltwine is a nice sideboard card. As for the others, they have too slow of an impact to be very good in Standard... Archaeomancer is pretty tech with Ghostly Flicker in pauper because of Mulldrifter and Glimmerpost, and Devils is great in EDH where no one ever has removal at the right time, but they don't really do much in standard.
'Bad' cards I want to see in the Standard scene; Mikaeus the Lunarch, Chalice of Life
MTGS egos at their finest.
Thoughts on proxies:
Archeomancer actually plays a pretty big role in that "Human Standard Eggs" deck.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
-Mikaeus, the Lunarch is an interesting card for decks with a +1/+1 counter subtheme. Decks using evolve creatures have a chronic tendency to either get blowouts with nut draws or never have a prayer with a slow starting hand. By filling out the curve at any point in the game and being a big body to keep up pressure post-wrath, I find that you get a lot more consistency.
-Charmbreaker Devils just isn't going to work, sadly. It isn't the random retrieval that kills it so much as the lack of effect on the turn it hits, which is unacceptable from a 6-drop. Even then, it can be chump blocked and doesn't really have a home in the first place. I love the card and have a soft spot for it, but it's not constructed playable.
-Tower Geist hasn't been half bad in most of my budget decks, particularly Seance. For 1 mana less, it isn't as far from Mulldrifter as you might think in decks with any sort of recursion. Competitively, it doesn't have a home due to Forbidden Alchemy and the fact that control decks aren't even playing creatures anymore, but you certainly could do a lot worse.
-I want Bloodgift Demon to be good so badly. Arena on an on-curve flying beatstick will always be awesome, but it has the same problem that Devils had, and there's a glut of other cards it has to compete with when every control deck is at least 3 colors.
-I want to break Jar of Eyeballs in one of the new Standard Eggs decklists. Got death triggers? Then you've got a repeatable tutor engine. If only there was an easier way to loop it...
-Splinterfright is one of my favorite cards ever printed. With Deathrite Shaman not making a huge Standard showing and Grisly Salvage as an enabler, maybe it's time for a comeback...
Cubetutor Link
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.