Since I was the first person to throw shade at Crucible of Worlds, I think it may be helpful for me to elaborate on why I think the card is so rotten. Fresh perspective and all.
First, I want to say that Crucible of Worlds obviously isn't a terrible card. It's just an okay-ish card. It isn't Chimney Imp, but it's no Necropotence either. When played in any kind of deck without extreme synergy (think Azusa + Strip Mine), Crucible of Worlds is just a decent value engine. That's it. By comparison though, there are so many better cards out there that Crucible of Worlds's role as a value engine is better fulfilled by dozens of other cards.
See, here's the beef that I have with the card, a lot of which has already been echoed by darrenhabib:
1.) Crucible of Worlds is susceptible to both spot removal and graveyard hate. Now, this isn't that big of a deal. Most value engines (think Phyrexian Arena) tend to be vulnerable to spot removal anyway since they're almost always permanents. Crucible of Worlds just also happens to have an extra layer with which opponents can interact with it. That's a strike against the card since it's less reliable as a value engine as a result.
2.) It only functions as a value engine if you're able to put lands into your graveyard. Now, clearly, any deck playing Crucible of Worlds is obviously going to be able to do this (or else they wouldn't be playing the card in the first place), but sometimes you won't draw your fetchlands or your Faithless Lootings, and Crucible of Worlds will just be a dead card as a result. And the longer the game goes on where Crucible is dead, the worse it gets since value engines like Crucible derive their worth from staying in play turn after turn. The more turns have passed, the fewer turns there will be left in the game for Crucible of Worlds to extract value, so the fact that it can sometimes be a dead card is depressing. You want to play value engines like this as early as possible.
3.) Even in the best case scenario where you land an early Crucible and you have a fetchland to support it, you're now drawing something like 33% fewer cards because it's incredibly unlikely that you'll be able to do anything productive with the lands you'll periodically draw off the top of your deck. That's abysmal. You don't need a card like Crucible of Worlds to ensure you make all of your land drops. Playing a sensible amount of card draw will just naturally guarantee you have all the lands you need anyway. And potentially missing a land due to a poor streak of draws might not be a catastrophe either, especially considering that drawing land cards tends to be much worse than drawing card cards in the later stages of the game.
So, if Crucible of Worlds is so lackluster, what do I propose players play instead? Any decent card draw.
With perhaps the exception of mono-white, every color combination has access to sufficient draw power. Hell, even white has access to great land drawing effects in cards like Tithe and Land Tax. They're not going to be equally good, but they don't need to be. Each color just needs to be sufficient enough at drawing cards to make something like Crucible of Worlds not worthwhile, and that's exactly where they stand. Blue, black, and green have obviously potent draw potential, but red also has access to things like wheels, looting, and Act on Impulse effects. There's just little reason to play Crucible of Worlds when the alternatives are so much better.
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Interesting discussion. Here are my responses to the sample questions. Sorry if you were looking for hard numbers. All I have to offer are my heuristics.
That's a tough one. I'm really not sure. For a card like Eidolon of Blossoms, I would need a critical mass of enchantments before it became worthwhile since, for the same cost, I could just cast Harmonize and draw three cards immediately, and that's better than drawing multiple cards over time. So, I guess the question I have to ask myself is: "how many cards do I need to draw with Eidolon of Blossoms to exceed the opportunity cost of not playing Harmonize?" It obviously has to be greater than three. Four cards maybe? It isn't apparent to me that drawing one card now and three cards later is measurably better than drawing three cards upfront, so maybe I'll set the bar at five cards total. At five cards, I'm fairly confident that I'd be more happy playing Eidolon of Blossoms than I would Harmonize.
Once I have that number, that sort of gives me an idea of just how many enchantments I need to be playing in order to hit my target. To draw four extra cards off Eidolon, I might want to be playing upwards of 25 enchantments. So, roughly one fourth of my deck. That sounds like a lot because it is, but if I only see an enchantment every four cards, I'm going to need to see at least sixteen cards by the time Eidolon of Blossoms completes its lifespan. And sure, the Eidolon will help me a little bit by finding additional enchantments to trigger it, but every enchantment I cast prior to casting the Eidolon is another enchantment I'll have to locate later.
Now, with Argothian Enchantress, things are a little different since, at two mana, I don't need to expect to draw as many cards with it. At a minimum, I'll need to ensure that Argothian Enchantress draws at least two cards, one to replace the card itself, and one to justify spending the mana, but it's hard to do much better than that for two mana. Because of this, I proportionally don't need to see as many enchantments since I don't need to draw as many cards with it to make it worth my mana. Perhaps eighteen enchantments would be enough? Again, it's hard for me to say. I usually trust my gut when it comes to this sort of stuff and just tune my decks to the proper number given sufficient playtesting.
How many 0 or 1 CMC artifacts before Trinket Mage gets a slot
For tutors, I really don't need that many targets in order to justify playing them. What's important to me isn't the number of targets they can find, but how valuable the targets they can find are. I would probably want more than one target in case I drew my Trinket Mage target naturally, but I think I would be comfortable with only playing two targets provided they were valuable enough.
How many 4 or less R/W instants before Sunforger finds a home
Same deal as Trinket Mage. If the card I'm tutoring for with Sunforger is critically important, I don't need to be playing a lot of different possible targets to justify playing it. I just need to make sure those key cards alone are worth it. You can see this sort of thing in action by looking at many of the competitive Zur decks. These decks will play roughly four or so targets because that's what they've determined is all that's necessary. The fact that a card like Sunforger can be used multiple times is just gravy. I don't need to get an excessive amount of value from it. I just need to get enough value out of the card to justify its inclusion, and sometimes that value can come from the inclusion of only a single card or two.
How many lands entering the graveyard or effects that do the same before Crucible of Worlds comes out.
It's virtually impossible to get me to play Crucible of Worlds in any deck. I think it's a garbage card that all but the most synergistic of decks should avoid.
This is probably even more personal and subjective than I think it is but in general do you have any guidelines or formulas you follow for this kind of thing?
I don't really have a hard and fast rule. I kind of wish I did. I tend to make a lot of comparisons whenever I think about including or excluding a given card, and most of my decisions tend to be based off opportunity cost.
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First, I want to say that Crucible of Worlds obviously isn't a terrible card. It's just an okay-ish card. It isn't Chimney Imp, but it's no Necropotence either. When played in any kind of deck without extreme synergy (think Azusa + Strip Mine), Crucible of Worlds is just a decent value engine. That's it. By comparison though, there are so many better cards out there that Crucible of Worlds's role as a value engine is better fulfilled by dozens of other cards.
See, here's the beef that I have with the card, a lot of which has already been echoed by darrenhabib:
1.) Crucible of Worlds is susceptible to both spot removal and graveyard hate. Now, this isn't that big of a deal. Most value engines (think Phyrexian Arena) tend to be vulnerable to spot removal anyway since they're almost always permanents. Crucible of Worlds just also happens to have an extra layer with which opponents can interact with it. That's a strike against the card since it's less reliable as a value engine as a result.
2.) It only functions as a value engine if you're able to put lands into your graveyard. Now, clearly, any deck playing Crucible of Worlds is obviously going to be able to do this (or else they wouldn't be playing the card in the first place), but sometimes you won't draw your fetchlands or your Faithless Lootings, and Crucible of Worlds will just be a dead card as a result. And the longer the game goes on where Crucible is dead, the worse it gets since value engines like Crucible derive their worth from staying in play turn after turn. The more turns have passed, the fewer turns there will be left in the game for Crucible of Worlds to extract value, so the fact that it can sometimes be a dead card is depressing. You want to play value engines like this as early as possible.
3.) Even in the best case scenario where you land an early Crucible and you have a fetchland to support it, you're now drawing something like 33% fewer cards because it's incredibly unlikely that you'll be able to do anything productive with the lands you'll periodically draw off the top of your deck. That's abysmal. You don't need a card like Crucible of Worlds to ensure you make all of your land drops. Playing a sensible amount of card draw will just naturally guarantee you have all the lands you need anyway. And potentially missing a land due to a poor streak of draws might not be a catastrophe either, especially considering that drawing land cards tends to be much worse than drawing card cards in the later stages of the game.
So, if Crucible of Worlds is so lackluster, what do I propose players play instead? Any decent card draw.
With perhaps the exception of mono-white, every color combination has access to sufficient draw power. Hell, even white has access to great land drawing effects in cards like Tithe and Land Tax. They're not going to be equally good, but they don't need to be. Each color just needs to be sufficient enough at drawing cards to make something like Crucible of Worlds not worthwhile, and that's exactly where they stand. Blue, black, and green have obviously potent draw potential, but red also has access to things like wheels, looting, and Act on Impulse effects. There's just little reason to play Crucible of Worlds when the alternatives are so much better.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Once I have that number, that sort of gives me an idea of just how many enchantments I need to be playing in order to hit my target. To draw four extra cards off Eidolon, I might want to be playing upwards of 25 enchantments. So, roughly one fourth of my deck. That sounds like a lot because it is, but if I only see an enchantment every four cards, I'm going to need to see at least sixteen cards by the time Eidolon of Blossoms completes its lifespan. And sure, the Eidolon will help me a little bit by finding additional enchantments to trigger it, but every enchantment I cast prior to casting the Eidolon is another enchantment I'll have to locate later.
Now, with Argothian Enchantress, things are a little different since, at two mana, I don't need to expect to draw as many cards with it. At a minimum, I'll need to ensure that Argothian Enchantress draws at least two cards, one to replace the card itself, and one to justify spending the mana, but it's hard to do much better than that for two mana. Because of this, I proportionally don't need to see as many enchantments since I don't need to draw as many cards with it to make it worth my mana. Perhaps eighteen enchantments would be enough? Again, it's hard for me to say. I usually trust my gut when it comes to this sort of stuff and just tune my decks to the proper number given sufficient playtesting.
For tutors, I really don't need that many targets in order to justify playing them. What's important to me isn't the number of targets they can find, but how valuable the targets they can find are. I would probably want more than one target in case I drew my Trinket Mage target naturally, but I think I would be comfortable with only playing two targets provided they were valuable enough.
Same deal as Trinket Mage. If the card I'm tutoring for with Sunforger is critically important, I don't need to be playing a lot of different possible targets to justify playing it. I just need to make sure those key cards alone are worth it. You can see this sort of thing in action by looking at many of the competitive Zur decks. These decks will play roughly four or so targets because that's what they've determined is all that's necessary. The fact that a card like Sunforger can be used multiple times is just gravy. I don't need to get an excessive amount of value from it. I just need to get enough value out of the card to justify its inclusion, and sometimes that value can come from the inclusion of only a single card or two.
It's virtually impossible to get me to play Crucible of Worlds in any deck. I think it's a garbage card that all but the most synergistic of decks should avoid.
I don't really have a hard and fast rule. I kind of wish I did. I tend to make a lot of comparisons whenever I think about including or excluding a given card, and most of my decisions tend to be based off opportunity cost.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!