Spotted this number the other day and I was pretty interested immediately:
Quickling
1 U
Creature - Faerie Rogue
Flash
Flying
When Quickling enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you return another creature you control to it's owner's hand.
2/2
A bear with flash and flying is never bad, and being able to effectively counter removal & save another threat of yours or buyback your etb creature for value seems great.
It could be a welcome new addition to U/x tempo decks that offers some interesting interactions. Blue doesn't have a lot going on at lower mana costs in terms of creatures, which both gives it a niche but also hurts it for possible lack of bounce targets. I could also definitely see this card being pretty useful in tribal cubes.
Can't flash it in turn 2 unless you play a 1 drop. If you are playing a deck that wants to play a 1 drop and a 2 drop, you don't want to be returning your 1 drop. Can't play it in an instant/flash type deck because they usually don't have many creatures and most of them want to stay on the field.
So basically it's relegated to guardian duty, which I don't think is that great at all. You are using cards in your deck on them, plus cards in your hand that might be dead. Even if you get maximum value from it (a person goes to kill a creature or block to kill your best on an all out attack) you are using a card to gain a card back to your hand and getting a 2/2 with tempo loss for one of their cards. Against sweepers it just martyrs for a dude.
I don't think this will make it to constructed lists just because there are better cards to fill those slots.
I definitely agree that this isn't the sort of creature that you'll be able to cast on curve. However, I also don't think that this is the type of creature that you would want to play on curve.
In a flash-tempo sort of deck it's true that you don't have a lot of creatures, but because of that it's often all the more critical to keep them alive. I think this guy can really shine towards the midgame when you have some extra mana to spare, and things like bouncing back and recasting in the same turn cards like Vendilion Clique, Snapcaster Mage, Pestermite, or Venser, Shaper Savant becomes possible (and powerful).
I'm looking at it like a poor-man's Restoration Angel in a lot of ways, and that may be me being blinded by best-case scenarios, but as something that blue doesn't have now (at least not with flash) it seems like it could definitely have a place in more than a few cube decks to me.
I suppose the question is whether those scenarios are frequent enough to justify it; if I get to recycle my etb guys I'm in, and if I get to save an important creature from the only removal they had for it, then I'm in, but if I'm just bouncing my own guys on end step to get a flying bear out (or just never casting it) then it's obviously not worth the spot.
A little like Kor Skyfisher, but with a smaller toughness and being forced to bounce a creature, but with flash. I don't think it's good enough for blue.
I think a more apt comparison is Stonecloaker. It has lower power and loses the ability to hose graveyard strategies, but you get to hold it up for only two mana, which lets you bluff much more easily. Being in blue, you can also play the instant speed game with greater ease.
The problem is that blue has so few one drops. One of the nice things about Stonecloaker is that if you have no tricky use for it, it's easy to flicker an Elite Vanguard or something dorky/outclassed and replay it, getting a reasonable flier without really disrupting the curve. Blue, on the other hand, has real problems playing this thing at all. I wouldn't consider Quickling unless I were actively supporting Faerie tribal as part of blue tempo, which is something I've seriously considered from time to time. If this were white, I'd test it in a heartbeat.
As far as I'm concerned, this is not even close to being in consideration. Whitemane Lion doesn't have flying, but it's in a better color for this effect, and Whitemane Lion is unplayable.
This seems like it has more constructed potential than Cube potential. The ability to bounce and replay Spellstutter Sprite while also ticking its X up by 1 is pretty solid.
Like Ninjas though, this card doesn't have an amazing best case scenario because there are relatively few one mana creatures you want to bounce.
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Returning a creature is asking a lot, though I suppose in cubes with a seriously-heavy blue tempo package this could make the cut, but even then it'd prob have to be a large cube.
If this blinked something instead of returning it to hand, I think it would be a contender. As is, it's not good enough for small and mid-sized cubes.
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I think if it blinked it would be a shoe in. It would play amazingly well with like half of blues creatures. Venser, Archmage, Man-o-War, Aether Adept, Mulldrifter, Master of Waves ect...
I mean, hell, we're all on a forum for something that most people would describe as a "children's card game"...do what makes you happy. You are never too old to enjoy yourself.
A little like Kor Skyfisher, but with a smaller toughness and being forced to bounce a creature, but with flash. I don't think it's good enough for blue.
If I could bounce any permanent, thus making it a blue Kor Skyfisher that trades 1 point of toughness for flash, I might run it. Being restricted to creatures is a serious blow and puts this little guy out of contention.
Quickling
1 U
Creature - Faerie Rogue
Flash
Flying
When Quickling enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you return another creature you control to it's owner's hand.
2/2
A bear with flash and flying is never bad, and being able to effectively counter removal & save another threat of yours or buyback your etb creature for value seems great.
It could be a welcome new addition to U/x tempo decks that offers some interesting interactions. Blue doesn't have a lot going on at lower mana costs in terms of creatures, which both gives it a niche but also hurts it for possible lack of bounce targets. I could also definitely see this card being pretty useful in tribal cubes.
What do you guys think?
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So basically it's relegated to guardian duty, which I don't think is that great at all. You are using cards in your deck on them, plus cards in your hand that might be dead. Even if you get maximum value from it (a person goes to kill a creature or block to kill your best on an all out attack) you are using a card to gain a card back to your hand and getting a 2/2 with tempo loss for one of their cards. Against sweepers it just martyrs for a dude.
I don't think this will make it to constructed lists just because there are better cards to fill those slots.
In a flash-tempo sort of deck it's true that you don't have a lot of creatures, but because of that it's often all the more critical to keep them alive. I think this guy can really shine towards the midgame when you have some extra mana to spare, and things like bouncing back and recasting in the same turn cards like Vendilion Clique, Snapcaster Mage, Pestermite, or Venser, Shaper Savant becomes possible (and powerful).
I'm looking at it like a poor-man's Restoration Angel in a lot of ways, and that may be me being blinded by best-case scenarios, but as something that blue doesn't have now (at least not with flash) it seems like it could definitely have a place in more than a few cube decks to me.
It also flies with swords, which doesn't hurt.
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The problem is that blue has so few one drops. One of the nice things about Stonecloaker is that if you have no tricky use for it, it's easy to flicker an Elite Vanguard or something dorky/outclassed and replay it, getting a reasonable flier without really disrupting the curve. Blue, on the other hand, has real problems playing this thing at all. I wouldn't consider Quickling unless I were actively supporting Faerie tribal as part of blue tempo, which is something I've seriously considered from time to time. If this were white, I'd test it in a heartbeat.
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Like Ninjas though, this card doesn't have an amazing best case scenario because there are relatively few one mana creatures you want to bounce.
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I think if it blinked it would be a shoe in. It would play amazingly well with like half of blues creatures. Venser, Archmage, Man-o-War, Aether Adept, Mulldrifter, Master of Waves ect...
As it is I don't like it.
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As is, I'm not particularly interested in that effect in blue. Whitemane Lion is cute, but you don't consistently get enough value in a rare Cube.
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