MTG Salvation

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I plan on casting this as a 5-drop. But if I have to reanimate it in a pinch because that's the play that's available to me... I've certainly spent reanimation spells on more embarrassing creatures than this over the years.

This exactly. I know on at least one occasion I reanimated a Fire Imp to stop getting beat on by a Soltari Monk. So, I could definitely see myself reanimating Doom Whisperer, but I'm playing it as a 5cc beatstick.

Cheers,
rant

My fear is that people will evaluate this card after not maximizing its potential impact on the game. Much like Sylvan Library, I fear players will under-pay when it comes to using the lifeloss ability. It's probably more correct to Surveil with reckless abandon than it is to rarely Surveil at all, and if I had to guess, I think most casual players will be too afraid to pay the life with this ...when they should be shredding their life totals to stack the deck/'yard in their favor. I plan on being overly-aggressive with the Surveil text when testing it, because I have a hunch that's where a lot of this card's value actually lies.

Agreed. The mostly unlimited nature of this ability is pretty unprecedented on a 5-drop, and I can imagine lots of situations where it’s correct to spend a ton of life to dump your deck full of graveyard value cards into the yard, aggressively set up a reanimation turn, or find a silver bullet for a threat that’s going to take over the game. There’s a part of me that wonders if this lets some combo-heavy cubes try out Labratory Maniac as a semi-combo with this and Griselbrand.

Either way, it’s a really unique angle of play for a cube card, and it comes on an obviously playable body in one of the most notorious holes in cube. I haven’t been this excited to try a card in a long time.

Quote from TheTennesseeFireman »

Agreed. The mostly unlimited nature of this ability is pretty unprecedented on a 5-drop, and I can imagine lots of situations where it’s correct to spend a ton of life to dump your deck full of graveyard value cards into the yard, aggressively set up a reanimation turn, or find a silver bullet for a threat that’s going to take over the game. There’s a part of me that wonders if this lets some combo-heavy cubes try out Labratory Maniac as a semi-combo with this and Griselbrand.

Either way, it’s a really unique angle of play for a cube card, and it comes on an obviously playable body in one of the most notorious holes in cube. I haven’t been this excited to try a card in a long time.

For what it's worth, the only game of testing I've seen the card in, the card did exactly that.
Opponent playing U/B reanimator (light on reanimation spells), I was playing a Gru(temur) ramp/sneak-attack/TTB/Channel deck.

He signet/Moxxed into an early Doom whisperer. His life total was high at that point. Ended up surveiling 5 times... Put like 3 fatties into the graveyard and set up a reanimation spell on top...

I ended up untapping and dumping all over him with my own combos (involving time walks), but it still felt like a powerful play, despite it not being consequential...

Just had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of turn 4 Doom Whisperer that surveiled 4 times to put Griselbrand (and a few other useful things) in the yard and proceeded to animate it. Swung for lethal next turn. Very much a top of the curve scenario (with nice mana as well), but the surveil ability seems like the real deal in reanimator.

We've been testing this for a while now, and although it's been solid in reanimator, 5cmc has been really difficult to reach for the black aggro decks. The card is still going to keep its spot in our cube for a while until we come to a full conclusion, but so far we've simply remembered how hard it is to reach 5 mana in all the other aggro colors, and this card doesn't make an exception. That fact makes me a kinda sad, as I thought this card would be good enough to warrant the extra land in your deck, but turns out that it isn't as good as it looks in aggro, at least not for us.

It's a 5-drop. Was anyone advocating the use of this for aggro?

Any further results upon this?

It's a solid midrange beater, especially w/ toughness-matters cards like Languish and the Wildfires. Good activated ability too, which is often underused in comparison to how often it would be correct to do so.

Looking at stats it's been a top 10 black card in my unpowered list with a main deck percentage of 83% and a 63% win rate.

A big fat flying trampler can be hard enough for most decks to deal with on its own, but it also can dig pretty deep. This card just straight up hoses a lot of green decks.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

It's a solid midrange beater, especially w/ toughness-matters cards like Languish and the Wildfires. Good activated ability too, which is often underused in comparison to how often it would be correct to do so.

I've been guilty of under using the surveil ability on Doom Whisperer myself. It's deceptively skill testing. Not only do you have the decision of whether to even activate it, but you also have the decision of what to do with the cards you see.

This card is definitely the real deal, and it'll be a long time before I expect it to be cut. The surveil ability is definitely strong, and I admit that I also underutilize it.

I wonder if there's a correlation between players that under-surveil with Doom Whisperer and those that under-draw with Sylvan Library. I see so many players play Library like a 2cc Mirri's Guile, and it makes me cringe watching players lose games because they refuse to pay life to dig out of bad draws. I'd rather pay 8 life twice and lose to a kicked Burst Lightning than lose because I refused to draw out of a bad situation before it was too late.

It is generally incredible how hard it is (for most players) to let go of the concept of "life" as representing something that should be preserved, rather than what it is - a finite resource.

On topic, I also still like Doom Whisperer and have no plan of removing it. Surveil is just a cool mechanic.

anyone found that it's better than the lich? or is it still Shriekmaw > Custodi Lich > Doom whisperer

I think it's closer than you do, but only if people actually use Doom Whisperer's surveil ability. Monarch is extremely strong, but Doom Whisperer both fixes your draws and also quickly helps you end the game. Lich is arguably better in the face of removal, since you still get the monarch and the sacrifice, but it also dies to a lot more.

I'd probably keep Doom Whisperer in over Custodi Lich if I had to choose, because it's more of a distinct 5-drop from Shriekmaw. Thankfully, I don't have to choose (at least for now).

lich is better than doom whisperer but only if you dont mind including monarch in your cube.

He has dual synergy with the Manifest mechanic (sets up your top card, but also flips up 'cheaply' to his size) and enables Necrotic Ooze so I like him. He's kind of in a weird spot where he doesn't make a ton of sense at the top of an aggro curve because he doesn't crack in immediately, and you don't want him to stabilize against aggro decks because he's close to being a vanilla 6/6 against those decks (At least he blocks, eh?) but in matchups where you can afford to blow 8 life to dredge a chunk of your library he's a good boy. Grey Merchant of Asphodel and The Eldest Reborn are also cards you could consider in the 5 drop slot. Gravebreaker Lamia seems kind of absurd to me, big lifelinkers are always pretty fun.