Seems like a great upgrade for those who run Brain Maggot. I prefer the Mesmeric Fiend for the shenanigans it brings, but still.
I won't run that Pirate but I'm glad to see Wizard want to boost up this type of effect. For those who like their Magot or Fiend to ride a sword, they're definitely going to like this one.
Not hitting creatures doesn't really seem that OK at all. Brain Maggot/Memsmeric Fiend has always been on the cusp for me because it dies to everything, and I don't think +1 toughness in exchange for missing the most common card type outside of land is really a sacrifice I'm willing to make. 1/3 would've made a huge difference if I have to ignore so many cards from the cube.
It has flying as well, that's the upside. Don't have to care about the +1 thoughness. And for having them in for a while, we can say that those dorks hit more than often noncreature spells. That's in fact their mean purpose. They act as Duress on legs that can swing sword's hits.
I didn't even mention that as I feel it's kind of negligible when you sacrifice so many targets to pick from and still die to quite a lot. Flying isn't saving a worse Mesmeric Fiend for me. It gives it a little more play, and I guess if you wanted to change things up you could run it as the second version instead of Brain Maggot, but I barely want Mesmeric Fiend #1 and giving up the Thoughtseize for Duress in exchange for flying and +0+1 doesn't seem that great.
Mesmeric Fiend would be way worse without the ability to hit creatures, do these changes really make up for that? When I think back to how many times I've pulled creatures with fiend, I'm highly skeptical. (Thank you MODO cube for giving me tons of experience with Fiend lol)
I don't think flying is negligible at all. If Mesmeric Fiend can't ever impact the board for fear of dying, then it's basically just a discard spell. Flying means this actually gets to do something instead of waiting around to be killed. You can peck for 1, block tokens, or pick up some equipment.
This is my favorite variant of this effect outside of Tidehollow.
As someone who like mesmeric fiend effects more than most (I ran mesmeric fiend up unitl like 9 months ago and I still run tidehollow sculler), I'm a fan of this guy.
Missing creatures is worth flying and an extra toughness IMO... might not be true for creature heavy unpowered cubes, but for medium sized powered cubes, I'm pretty confident it is.
My black section is SOOOOOO tight as I'm running a mono black devotion experiment, not sure if I can test, but eventually I will.
Not hitting creatures doesn't really seem that OK at all. Brain Maggot/Memsmeric Fiend has always been on the cusp for me because it dies to everything, and I don't think +1 toughness in exchange for missing the most common card type outside of land is really a sacrifice I'm willing to make. 1/3 would've made a huge difference if I have to ignore so many cards from the cube.
Duress can't hit creatures, black already has plenty of ways of dealing with them. I'm not saying this card is great, but the fact that it's disruptive and evasive makes this stand out a bit. May test over Pain Seer (sorry Scoundrels!)
Duress also costs 1, and doesn't return the card to my opponent's hand when it dies or force me to deal with the creature on the board if it can be realistically dealt with. Apples->oranges.
The strength of this card heavily relies on whether a 1 power flier makes up for missing a large portion of most people's cube. I could be wrong, but I really don't think I want to give my mesmeric fiends flying and +1 toughness for that exchange. I'll be looking forward to the testing results as I'm always ready to be wrong since being wrong means playable cube cards, and it's status as a MODO staple if the forever Mesmeric Fiends that have been in those cubes since day 1 (not verified) are any indicator lol
Yeah I get that flying is a thing and he can be evasive, but I think in practice that missing creatures won't be worth the upgrades.
It depends on your non-creature/creature ratio. Like in an powered cube, early in the game, even your opponents "lands" could be a slow-rolled mana crypt. Or if you go mox -> this guy, you can snipe a sol ring etc. Spells drop sharply off in power after the core set of premium spells you'd find in 360, so larger cubes tend to be more creature heavy than smaller.
I can't count how many times mesmeric fiend would get stone walled and you couldn't do anything with his body. In a deck like reanimator, that wouldn't matter. But in an agro-midrange deck, getting in a few extra points of damage is huge. Also incentives you to draft equipment.
I'm not 100% confident it's better, but that's where I'd place my money.
@Lucid With your 485 powered cube specifically, it hits ~200 less cards than Mesmeric Fiend, and in your 360 powered back up it misses 145 cards. The flying would have to make Fiend significantly better to justify that, as that's significantly worse, and I don't think just flying without any kind of power increase and only the slight toughness increase makes that OK.
Again, I'm hoping to be wrong!, but I wish it did a bit more.
@Lucid With your 485 powered cube specifically, it hits ~200 less cards than Mesmeric Fiend, and in your 360 powered back up it misses 145 cards. The flying would have to make Fiend significantly better to justify that, as that's significantly worse, and I don't think just flying without any kind of power increase and only the slight toughness increase makes that OK.
Again, I'm hoping to be wrong!, but I wish it did a bit more.
That kind of paints a false picture.. Generally with mesmeric fiend variants, you prioritize taking removal spells. Unless it's very important you disrupt the tempo of their next turn play, they can just kill the mesmeric fiend with the removal spell and get their card back.
Also, on average, the strongest card in the opponents hand is going to be non-creature... So even with mesmeric fiend and their hand is 4 creatures and a non-creature, I'm often taking the non-creature spell anyway.
But I must admit, I have been bricking on my duress' more of late than I'd like to admit ,
Also remember, this has the new o-ring/banishing light wording. So before, if you use a removal spell in response to mesmeric fiend's etb trigger, they wouldnt get the card back. However if you remove this card in response, they will get the card back.
Also remember, this has the new o-ring/banishing light wording. So before, if you use a removal spell in response to mesmeric fiend's etb trigger, they wouldnt get the card back. However if you remove this card in response, they will get the card back.
Hmmm...... right, this is actually pretty relevant.
Eh, I always felt that was an overstated part of Fiend/Sculler's value. If I wanted to play Castigate, I'd play Castigate. There's value in having the creature in play and forcing your opponent to spend removal on a 2-drop.
@Lucid With your 485 powered cube specifically, it hits ~200 less cards than Mesmeric Fiend, and in your 360 powered back up it misses 145 cards. The flying would have to make Fiend significantly better to justify that, as that's significantly worse, and I don't think just flying without any kind of power increase and only the slight toughness increase makes that OK.
Again, I'm hoping to be wrong!, but I wish it did a bit more.
That kind of paints a false picture.. Generally with mesmeric fiend variants, you prioritize taking removal spells. Unless it's very important you disrupt the tempo of their next turn play, they can just kill the mesmeric fiend with the removal spell and get their card back.
Also, on average, the strongest card in the opponents hand is going to be non-creature... So even with mesmeric fiend and their hand is 4 creatures and a non-creature, I'm often taking the non-creature spell anyway.
But I must admit, I have been bricking on my duress' more of late than I'd like to admit ,
Nah, it doesn't, it paints the picture I'm aiming for perfectly, which is this misses a LOT of cards that fiend doesn't.
Yes, you're going to want to take the removal a lot of the time, so in that regard these cards aren't different. But when so much of the cube can't be hit, that means so much of the hands can't be hit, and as magic is a game of variance that means that numerically there will be more hands with more creatures/lands than not considering most cube decks are 15-17 lands and (conservatively) 5+ creatures. So that means, in the cases where the best thing to take is a creature, this card is really way worse as I'd much rather be optimally disruptive vs getting the Xth best thing + finding a way to deal with that creature when it lands and have a 1/2 flier. Hypothetically it should be better against control decks, but I imagine most of the kill spells a control deck would have would nail Kitesail as much as they would Fiend, so that's probably also mostly negligible.
When the great scenarios happen--you peck for a few points of damage, you carry an equipment, you chump 1/1s--it does seem better, but is that really that much better than the potential horrendously low floor that missing offers, or not getting the card you'd actually rather strip/is the biggest problem? I'd much rather my Mesmeric Fiend sitting there being stonewalled and always having the biggest problem card vs pecking for a few points of damage/carrying equipment/etc. and not hitting the biggest problem card in their hand X percent of the time.
Being a Duress effect rather than a Thoughtseize is far from a deal breaker. Creatures are inherently less archetype defining / immediately impactful to the game compares to other card types. I'm usually not hitting a creature when casting Thoughtseize. Also, there are a lot more decks that are light on creatures than decks that are heavy on creature, IME.
The merits this has over Mesmeric Fiend is that this actually has board presence. If I were playing Mesmeric Fiend I'd probably just play some other actual discard spell in its place. I think the old wording loophole is extremely irrelevant unless you have a lot of sac outlets.
I can see this fitting well into a lot of Stax decks where the disruption and evasion come into play the most.
I think it's super cool. Not sure if I really want it, but among all the variants out there, this would be my number 1; fewer targets is worth the flying IMO, and 2 toughness is sometimes relevant.
I don't think the +0/+1 and flying is worth missing out on hitting like half the potential cards that can be taken by Fiend/Maggot. Not by a longshot. It's an easy pass for me.
I'm interested to see so much debate. This is definitely a card on the cusp of being good enough. I will probably run this card, but nobody should feel bad for omitting it. Duress misses a lot, and this will miss more (since it costs 2 instead of 1), but Storm Crow stats aren't THAT bad, and Mesmeric Fiend effects are well liked. I don't think most cubes will keep this, but those that do can feel justified in doing so.
If I am going to take a black creature from this set, it is likely going to be Fathom Fleet Captain and not Kitesail Freebooter. Freebooter does not hit enough nor hard enough to compensate for what it misses on, at that point I would rather keep things a bit more linear for little black creatures or just leave things as is.
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Being a Duress effect rather than a Thoughtseize is far from a deal breaker. Creatures are inherently less archetype defining / immediately impactful to the game compares to other card types. I'm usually not hitting a creature when casting Thoughtseize. Also, there are a lot more decks that are light on creatures than decks that are heavy on creature, IME.
Creatures are also insanely powerful and can win the game on their own. And this *barely* has a board presence, it's a 1/2 flier.
We'll have to agree to disagree because a lot of our disagreements are 'these things happen this way in my experience/well they happen that way in mine', so if you're seeing less creature decks than I am then I guess I get the appeal, but that's pretty far from my own experience.
You are so wrong about the creature clause mattering.
-black can recur creatures EASY (reuse this guy easier than duress)
-black can kill creatures EASY (you don't need the creature clause)
What's not to like that its a duress for 1 more mana as a 1/2 flyer... When your turn 1 play should be Inquisition anyway.
Again, in some cases you're right, you'll be able to deal with the creature(s) they have in hand so it's better to take the noncreature spell. In those cases, this card will obviously be better. In some cases it will be marginally better or virtually the same, in other cases it will be much better. In a vacuum it's not a much higher ceiling but it can be much higher if you have Jitte or other eqipment or you need to get in with a flier.
However, you can't dismiss the opposite situations from ever or even regularly occurring. What happens when I play this in a spot where they only have creatures in their hand? Or the noncreature spell doesn't matter in comparison to the creature that's a bigger problem?
And how am I always going to have recursion? Or how will I always have the kill spell? Even in some of my best designed decks the important cards sit at the bottom, it's part of the game and one that this card makes really apparent. I wish I was so lucky that I could count on always having the kill spells and always recurring my dudes when I'm playing black, but unfortunately there are 40 cards in a deck and the ~15-20 one sees on an average game (those numbers are probably off, but probably not by much if so (and they're definitely off for me since I take every Worldknit I see no matter where it is in the draft)) will not always include a kill spell or recursion spell.
Mesmeric Fiend is an unreliable card as is due to it dying, removing a large portion of its targets and making it slightly harder to kill in exchange for a better body seems like you're setting your players up for even worse experiences.
The strength of fiend isn't that it's a *good* creature, but just that it's a creature. That strength is because it can hit anything and you can recur it/do baseline 'creature things' with it. Say whatever you want about your duresses and how great black is at always having the right discard/kill spell, but missing off of fiend would be unacceptable, and that will happen with this card. Not 'maybe', not 'probably', but due to the nature of the game's variance Kitesail Freebooter will have times where you miss and that is god awful. And to tack on that abyssmal floor for flying and +1 toughness is asking a lot.
The recursion aspect is pretty important for what it targets as well, since if you recur it and they have 2-3 cards in hand, there are going to be a percentage of games where they're holding onto a creature they can't cast or the better card to grab is the creature. Yes, the other side of things when you can grab that planeswalker or the sandbagged equipment will be sweet, but it would've been sweet with Mesmeric Fiend and you are opening yourself up to that many more ways to not get the most out of your fiend variant.
A third toughness would've gone a LONG way for this guy. The difference between 1 and 2 toughness isn't too huge compared to the difference between 2 and 3, at least in cube. There's very little removal that kills an X/1 but misses an X/2, and there are a decent amount of creatures that have < 3 power. I would also definitely play this if it was a 2/1.
Probably the best Mesmeric Fiend variant. Can't hit creatures, but that's okay. Thoughts?
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I won't run that Pirate but I'm glad to see Wizard want to boost up this type of effect. For those who like their Magot or Fiend to ride a sword, they're definitely going to like this one.
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Mesmeric Fiend would be way worse without the ability to hit creatures, do these changes really make up for that? When I think back to how many times I've pulled creatures with fiend, I'm highly skeptical. (Thank you MODO cube for giving me tons of experience with Fiend lol)
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This is my favorite variant of this effect outside of Tidehollow.
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Missing creatures is worth flying and an extra toughness IMO... might not be true for creature heavy unpowered cubes, but for medium sized powered cubes, I'm pretty confident it is.
My black section is SOOOOOO tight as I'm running a mono black devotion experiment, not sure if I can test, but eventually I will.
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Duress can't hit creatures, black already has plenty of ways of dealing with them. I'm not saying this card is great, but the fact that it's disruptive and evasive makes this stand out a bit. May test over Pain Seer (sorry Scoundrels!)
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The strength of this card heavily relies on whether a 1 power flier makes up for missing a large portion of most people's cube. I could be wrong, but I really don't think I want to give my mesmeric fiends flying and +1 toughness for that exchange. I'll be looking forward to the testing results as I'm always ready to be wrong since being wrong means playable cube cards, and it's status as a MODO staple if the forever Mesmeric Fiends that have been in those cubes since day 1 (not verified) are any indicator lol
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It depends on your non-creature/creature ratio. Like in an powered cube, early in the game, even your opponents "lands" could be a slow-rolled mana crypt. Or if you go mox -> this guy, you can snipe a sol ring etc. Spells drop sharply off in power after the core set of premium spells you'd find in 360, so larger cubes tend to be more creature heavy than smaller.
I can't count how many times mesmeric fiend would get stone walled and you couldn't do anything with his body. In a deck like reanimator, that wouldn't matter. But in an agro-midrange deck, getting in a few extra points of damage is huge. Also incentives you to draft equipment.
I'm not 100% confident it's better, but that's where I'd place my money.
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That kind of paints a false picture.. Generally with mesmeric fiend variants, you prioritize taking removal spells. Unless it's very important you disrupt the tempo of their next turn play, they can just kill the mesmeric fiend with the removal spell and get their card back.
Also, on average, the strongest card in the opponents hand is going to be non-creature... So even with mesmeric fiend and their hand is 4 creatures and a non-creature, I'm often taking the non-creature spell anyway.
But I must admit, I have been bricking on my duress' more of late than I'd like to admit ,
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Hmmm...... right, this is actually pretty relevant.
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Nah, it doesn't, it paints the picture I'm aiming for perfectly, which is this misses a LOT of cards that fiend doesn't.
Yes, you're going to want to take the removal a lot of the time, so in that regard these cards aren't different. But when so much of the cube can't be hit, that means so much of the hands can't be hit, and as magic is a game of variance that means that numerically there will be more hands with more creatures/lands than not considering most cube decks are 15-17 lands and (conservatively) 5+ creatures. So that means, in the cases where the best thing to take is a creature, this card is really way worse as I'd much rather be optimally disruptive vs getting the Xth best thing + finding a way to deal with that creature when it lands and have a 1/2 flier. Hypothetically it should be better against control decks, but I imagine most of the kill spells a control deck would have would nail Kitesail as much as they would Fiend, so that's probably also mostly negligible.
When the great scenarios happen--you peck for a few points of damage, you carry an equipment, you chump 1/1s--it does seem better, but is that really that much better than the potential horrendously low floor that missing offers, or not getting the card you'd actually rather strip/is the biggest problem? I'd much rather my Mesmeric Fiend sitting there being stonewalled and always having the biggest problem card vs pecking for a few points of damage/carrying equipment/etc. and not hitting the biggest problem card in their hand X percent of the time.
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The merits this has over Mesmeric Fiend is that this actually has board presence. If I were playing Mesmeric Fiend I'd probably just play some other actual discard spell in its place. I think the old wording loophole is extremely irrelevant unless you have a lot of sac outlets.
I can see this fitting well into a lot of Stax decks where the disruption and evasion come into play the most.
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Creatures are also insanely powerful and can win the game on their own. And this *barely* has a board presence, it's a 1/2 flier.
We'll have to agree to disagree because a lot of our disagreements are 'these things happen this way in my experience/well they happen that way in mine', so if you're seeing less creature decks than I am then I guess I get the appeal, but that's pretty far from my own experience.
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-black can recur creatures EASY (reuse this guy easier than duress)
-black can kill creatures EASY (you don't need the creature clause)
What's not to like that its a duress for 1 more mana as a 1/2 flyer... When your turn 1 play should be Inquisition anyway.
However, you can't dismiss the opposite situations from ever or even regularly occurring. What happens when I play this in a spot where they only have creatures in their hand? Or the noncreature spell doesn't matter in comparison to the creature that's a bigger problem?
And how am I always going to have recursion? Or how will I always have the kill spell? Even in some of my best designed decks the important cards sit at the bottom, it's part of the game and one that this card makes really apparent. I wish I was so lucky that I could count on always having the kill spells and always recurring my dudes when I'm playing black, but unfortunately there are 40 cards in a deck and the ~15-20 one sees on an average game (those numbers are probably off, but probably not by much if so (and they're definitely off for me since I take every Worldknit I see no matter where it is in the draft)) will not always include a kill spell or recursion spell.
Mesmeric Fiend is an unreliable card as is due to it dying, removing a large portion of its targets and making it slightly harder to kill in exchange for a better body seems like you're setting your players up for even worse experiences.
The strength of fiend isn't that it's a *good* creature, but just that it's a creature. That strength is because it can hit anything and you can recur it/do baseline 'creature things' with it. Say whatever you want about your duresses and how great black is at always having the right discard/kill spell, but missing off of fiend would be unacceptable, and that will happen with this card. Not 'maybe', not 'probably', but due to the nature of the game's variance Kitesail Freebooter will have times where you miss and that is god awful. And to tack on that abyssmal floor for flying and +1 toughness is asking a lot.
The recursion aspect is pretty important for what it targets as well, since if you recur it and they have 2-3 cards in hand, there are going to be a percentage of games where they're holding onto a creature they can't cast or the better card to grab is the creature. Yes, the other side of things when you can grab that planeswalker or the sandbagged equipment will be sweet, but it would've been sweet with Mesmeric Fiend and you are opening yourself up to that many more ways to not get the most out of your fiend variant.
A third toughness would've gone a LONG way for this guy. The difference between 1 and 2 toughness isn't too huge compared to the difference between 2 and 3, at least in cube. There's very little removal that kills an X/1 but misses an X/2, and there are a decent amount of creatures that have < 3 power. I would also definitely play this if it was a 2/1.
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