I have a 545-card unpowered cube and I like to run a decent number of playable equipment. The +2/+2 bonus is fine, though I'm not a huge fan of paying to equip. However, I wonder if the casting cost offsets that. You can drop it turn 1 if you don't have a creature to play and then use it later. In my cube, colorless creatures (to include face-down morphs) number under 25.
Right now, I'm not running this. It's in a small pile of cards I'm considering in a future update. I'm not sure if the pluses outweigh the minuses on this one.
You have to jump through a bunch of hoops and then get really lucky for this card to be a better Bonesplitter ...but only for colorless creatures. Pass.
I haven't tested the card, but I'm guessing it's subpar.
Trusty Machete is too expensive for most medium sized cubes. I don't think an extra point of toughness warrants even more mana on the equip cost the vast majority of the time.
If it were 1 to equip all the time, it'd be worth it because it's so cheap, but the average case scenario is going to be paying double the total cost, and triple the activation cost of the ideal scenario.
You have to jump through a bunch of hoops and then get really lucky for this card to be a better Bonesplitter ...but only for colorless creatures. Pass.
Yeah, if I had more colorless creatures and morphs, I'd probably like this card better. But 23/545 just isn't a lot. I think this will probably go back into my collection.
I consider it about on par with Vulshok Morningstar if you're going to go a heavy equipment route. Requiring greater total mana for re-equipping and sucking if you get stuck on 2 mana is about an even trade for the minor upside of the colorless ability and getting to play it on 1 mana. It would be worse in an aggressive deck though, so keep that in mind.
Looking at your list, I like including Blade and Adventuring Gear over Hedron Matrix and Masterwork of Ingenuity. I haven't tried the latter two, but I can't imagine they're anything but clunky and inconsistent.
Looking at your list, I like including Blade and Adventuring Gear over Hedron Matrix and Masterwork of Ingenuity. I haven't tried the latter two, but I can't imagine they're anything but clunky and inconsistent.
I haven't seen Masterwork come up in a game yet, so I'm going to keep it in for now. Hedron Matrix was always money for me in MTGO drafts so I included it based on that. I'll probably take it out in the next update, though -- the equip cost is too clunky. I like Dagger too. Gear would be a consideration. Thanks.
Well, I do have an artifact portion and some number of morphs, so I'm not dismissing this entirely.
+2 toughness can be significant too.
I don't think it's a bad card. In the right cube, it could be a solid fit. I don't think it's a solid fit for my cube, though -- the equip cost is higher than I'd like, and I can only pay the discounted rate on <25 creatures. If you have a lot of artifact guys and morphs, that changes Ghostfire Blade's value.
The normal equip cost is just too high and the cost reduction will only rarely matter in a typical cube. When looking at similar equipments, I am always prefering the ones with the lower equip costs, since I usually expect an equipment to be equipped more than once. From the top of my head, I can think of three equipments that give a vanilla +2/+2 bonus and that initially cost 4 (to cast and equip once). I would rank them as follows:
Unless you have a novelty cube full of artifact creatures, Eldrazi spawns or morphs, I would always prefer the Helm. Not only is it super cheap to move around, it sometimes even has a bonus effect.
This seems good only if you're running a bunch of morphs or artifact creatures, and even that seems questionable as most morphs don't come out until turn 3 most of the time. Trusty Machete, Silver-Inlaid Dagger, and Darksteel Axe just seem better in general.
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Here's the card in question:
I have a 545-card unpowered cube and I like to run a decent number of playable equipment. The +2/+2 bonus is fine, though I'm not a huge fan of paying to equip. However, I wonder if the casting cost offsets that. You can drop it turn 1 if you don't have a creature to play and then use it later. In my cube, colorless creatures (to include face-down morphs) number under 25.
Right now, I'm not running this. It's in a small pile of cards I'm considering in a future update. I'm not sure if the pluses outweigh the minuses on this one.
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Trusty Machete is too expensive for most medium sized cubes. I don't think an extra point of toughness warrants even more mana on the equip cost the vast majority of the time.
If it were 1 to equip all the time, it'd be worth it because it's so cheap, but the average case scenario is going to be paying double the total cost, and triple the activation cost of the ideal scenario.
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Yeah, if I had more colorless creatures and morphs, I'd probably like this card better. But 23/545 just isn't a lot. I think this will probably go back into my collection.
Thanks. I run the former and am considering the latter (a decent number of humans gives the extra bonus a fair chance of hitting).
EDIT: My bad; Machete is in my peasant cube, not this one.
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Looking at your list, I like including Blade and Adventuring Gear over Hedron Matrix and Masterwork of Ingenuity. I haven't tried the latter two, but I can't imagine they're anything but clunky and inconsistent.
EDIT: Also Silver-Inlaid Dagger.
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I haven't seen Masterwork come up in a game yet, so I'm going to keep it in for now. Hedron Matrix was always money for me in MTGO drafts so I included it based on that. I'll probably take it out in the next update, though -- the equip cost is too clunky. I like Dagger too. Gear would be a consideration. Thanks.
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+2 toughness can be significant too.
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I don't think it's a bad card. In the right cube, it could be a solid fit. I don't think it's a solid fit for my cube, though -- the equip cost is higher than I'd like, and I can only pay the discounted rate on <25 creatures. If you have a lot of artifact guys and morphs, that changes Ghostfire Blade's value.
Heh. It took me a few looks at it, too. I had it in my Prerelease deck and I think I finally got it in the last round.
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Champion's Helm > Vulshok Morningstar > Ghostfire Blade
Unless you have a novelty cube full of artifact creatures, Eldrazi spawns or morphs, I would always prefer the Helm. Not only is it super cheap to move around, it sometimes even has a bonus effect.
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