MTG Salvation

She's fairly bomby if unanswered, as you can imagine. I kind of like the B/R cards that provide immediate value a little bit more:

Falkenrath Aristocrat
Terminate
Murderous Redcap
Blightning
Bituminous Blast

There are bigger and better bombs in black and Red imo, and a card like Olivia just isn't needed, over one of these more useful cards.

She is basically the fourth Masticore in cube. She has a different drawback (being multicolored instead of having to discard a card each turn), but she pings just as well. She cannot regenerate and she starts with toughness 3, but not being an artifact makes her less fragile and her toughness quickly growths.

She works both as a curve topper in aggro decks, where she pings blockers and becomes a big flying finisher that you dropped on turn four, as well as in slower decks.

The main disadvantage she has is that you have to pump lots of mana into her, but you have to do that with Masticore, Morphling, Thornling and others, too. And you get decent value out of that mana. Still, if you like to spend your mana on other stuff, Falkenrath Aristocrat is a good alternative. They are roughly on the same powerlevel, making the choice which one of those two to include just about preference.

One of the best cards you can draft for grixis control. The problem is it's red/black which normally wants to be aggressive. She is the strongest card in RB but also too slow for most RB decks. I won't be cutting her any time soon because she is a local favorite as a control card and add a way to give RB a late game play.

She's a monster if she's not answered quickly but she's also not a card that the typical R/B aggro decks want to play. She's kind of like Geist of Saint Traft, you might not want to run her if she's on color but if you do want to play her she'll be great.

She's obviously good, but I don't think she plays well with most of the BR cards. She's a midrangey/controlly card in a color pair that is often hyper-aggressive. She'll be great in slower and larger cubes and in cubes that see a lot of Grixis control.

Cheers,
rant

Olivia Voldaren is a card that made my 22 cards gold section as one of only two Rakdos cards (the other being Murderous Redcap); this is because Rakdos control is a very real deck for us.

Quote from rantipole

She's obviously good, but I don't think she plays well with most of the BR cards. She's a midrangey/controlly card in a color pair that is often hyper-aggressive. She'll be great in slower and larger cubes and in cubes that see a lot of Grixis control.

Cheers,
rant

This was exactly our issue with her. She's a good control creature in a color combination that usually wants to be in aggro. She's also only good as a black splash. If you cast her off one source of red, she's not so great. I need to be pinging a lot to get good value from her. I think she's good, but I don't run her as one of my 4 Rakdos cards.

Well, she is far from unplayable in BR aggro. Shoot a blocker, get bigger, attack in the air for lots of damage sounds fitting for an aggro deck to me. She can quickly outgrow even flying control finishers, without the need to ever play more than four lands.


2500th post!

Quote from Star Slayer

Well, she is far from unplayable in BR aggro. Shoot a blocker, get bigger, attack in the air for lots of damage sounds fitting for an aggro deck to me. She can quickly outgrow even flying control finishers, without the need to ever play more than four lands.


2500th post!

She's pretty unplayable, when compared to her competition (cube is not a vacuum). I would run Redcap, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Hero of Oxid Ridge" target="blank">Hero of Oxid Ridge, FtK, Avalanche Riders, Hellrider, Braids, Nekrataal, Skinrender, Keldon Champion, and probably Blazing Specter over her in most any aggro deck.

Quote from Phantizle

She's pretty unplayable, when compared to her competition (cube is not a vacuum). I would run Redcap, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Hero of Oxid Ridge" target="blank">Hero of Oxid Ridge, FtK, Avalanche Riders, Hellrider, Braids, Nekrataal, Skinrender, Keldon Champion, and probably Blazing Specter over her in most any aggro deck.

That's true. RX aggro often ends up with a serious glut of 4-drops. Last time I drafted that deck, I had to leave Avalanche Riders and Ravenous Baboons in the sideboard because that slot was already full...

Quote from Star Slayer

That's true. RX aggro often ends up with a serious glut of 4-drops. Last time I drafted that deck, I had to leave Avalanche Riders and Ravenous Baboons in the sideboard because that slot was already full...

I don't think I have ever left Avalanche Riders in my SB. Like ever.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is the mysterious 3rd leg. This card is probably not safe to play around children.

Quote from Donald

Something that hasn't been mentioned is the mysterious 3rd leg. This card is probably not safe to play around children.

Once seen, cannot unsee.

Quote from Happy Gilmore

I don't think I have ever left Avalanche Riders in my SB. Like ever.

I'll sideboard it in a deck that doesn't have any other tempo disruption for better 4-drops. But in a deck with 2-3 other LD spells/tempo disruption, I'll play it over almost every other 4-drop.

Quote from Donald

Something that hasn't been mentioned is the mysterious 3rd leg. This card is probably not safe to play around children.

It's safer than Ekundu Cyclops. That's all kinds of wrong.

Cheers,
rant

Quote from rantipole

It's safer than Ekundu Cyclops. That's all kinds of wrong.

Cheers,
rant

And both of them are better than Clergy en-Vec. What were they thinking? That art + that flavor text? Jeez.

Olivia is the most powerful RB card IMO.
So excluding means your R/B/x decks want something else.

Correct. She's a great RB control card, but my RB decks want other effects. She's also not very splashable. Most 4+cc gold cards are great if you're only barely splashing one of the two colors, but she's not. Especially not if red is her splash.

In the aggressive BR decks, I've been seeing her as a turn 6 or so drop, mostly using the ping to "scare the opponent" into believing their guy might be mind controlled.

However, she has been bounced and dealt with no problem.

Additionally, in my group, she is not a high pick, but welcomed towards the end, more like an "extra" if more critical black and reds are missed or not used in the particular draft pool.

Just the ability to mess with your opponents head a bit seems worth it! What do you think?

Quote from Donald

Something that hasn't been mentioned is the mysterious 3rd leg. This card is probably not safe to play around children.

Funniest thing I've read on this forum. I literally laughed out loud.

I think this card is to narrow. Most of the time I'd rather have masticor. And if I'm aggro I would rather have the 4/1 that some other people have suggested.

This card suffers from a similar drawback to Geist of Saint Traft. I think the mentality of the RB color pair (or UW) only making 1 type of deck is rather narrow. Although this would be the prototypical function, unless you're only doing 2-3 person drafts, it isn't uncommon to not be able to hit that 'critical mass' of aggro cards (or control cards) that you need. Hence, these atypical, high power level, mid-rangey cards become a lot stronger. I'd rank Olivia #2 in RB (behind Redcap), and Geist #1 in UW based on pure power level, and I recommend anyone doing 4-8 person drafts to give them a try.

Quote from wtwlf123

And both of them are better than Clergy en-Vec. What were they thinking? That art + that flavor text? Jeez.

Somehow I missed this discussion. Anyways - Retribution is a card I will leave you to look at. Personally I think the Minotaur is looking for a 3-way.

Quote from Fidelis

Somehow I missed this discussion. Anyways - Retribution is a card I will leave you to look at. Personally I think the Minotaur is looking for a 3-way.

Oh my god.

It reminds me of the scene in Pulp Fiction where Zed turns around as Butch walks in with the samurai sword.