Sure but spending 3 mana and pitching a real (nonland) card to get a 2/2 isn't worth it
I think the floor is worth the ceiling since you're essentially paying a 1 mana tax upfront to give yourself the option to give any of your cards Cycling 2: At the beginning of your next upkeep, create a treasure or a 2/2 token. This really helps in the early game to make sure you have some sort of business by filtering your hand, putting up defense against aggro, or ramping / fixing your mana. All of this bundled into something that's essentially a 1 mana planeswalker when paired with other discard outlets, not to mention its archetype applications for reanimator / artifacts matters.
I know this is different because it’s a colorless artifact, but Cryptbreaker was super disappointing for us. It was never even good or needed in Reanimator decks.
Cryptbreaker is fragile, didn't loot or ramp, and doesn't appeal to any combo decks sans Reanimator.
Quote from asmallcat »
I'm getting strong trading post vibes from this card
I always thought Trading Post was pretty janky even when it was released 10 years ago, but I think this card is leagues better than Trading Post was relative to their eras.
Quote from asmallcat »
It just feels like in modern tuned cubes it's hard to justify cards like this as going turn 1 this, turn 2 loot, turn 3 get a 2/2 and a 3 drop just gets you run over by an aggro deck. Or a ramp deck. Or a combo deck.
This isn't awful against aggro as it at least buys you time on the ground to dig for your answers. Meanwhile, the ramp / combo decks will often want to be playing this.
Sure but spending 3 mana and pitching a real (nonland) card to get a 2/2 isn't worth it
I think the floor is worth the ceiling since you're essentially paying a 1 mana tax upfront to give yourself the option to give any of your cards Cycling 2: At the beginning of your next upkeep, create a treasure or a 2/2 token. This really helps in the early game to make sure you have some sort of business by filtering your hand, putting up defense against aggro, or ramping / fixing your mana. All of this bundled into something that's essentially a 1 mana planeswalker when paired with other discard outlets, not to mention its archetype applications for reanimator / artifacts matters.
I know this is different because it’s a colorless artifact, but Cryptbreaker was super disappointing for us. It was never even good or needed in Reanimator decks.
Cryptbreaker is fragile, didn't loot or ramp, and doesn't appeal to any combo decks sans Reanimator.
Quote from asmallcat »
I'm getting strong trading post vibes from this card
I always thought Trading Post was pretty janky even when it was released 10 years ago, but I think this card is leagues better than Trading Post was relative to their eras.
Quote from asmallcat »
It just feels like in modern tuned cubes it's hard to justify cards like this as going turn 1 this, turn 2 loot, turn 3 get a 2/2 and a 3 drop just gets you run over by an aggro deck. Or a ramp deck. Or a combo deck.
This isn't awful against aggro as it at least buys you time on the ground to dig for your answers. Meanwhile, the ramp / combo decks will often want to be playing this.
Quote from asmallcat »
It's also a pretty heinous topdeck if you're hellbent.
I think this is a very poor argument against it since most 1 drops are pretty bad as a hellbent topdeck later in the game. You can essentially say the same thing for something like Black Lotus / Sol Ring / etc.
I think this is a very poor argument against it since most 1 drops are pretty bad as a hellbent topdeck later in the game. You can essentially say the same thing for something like Black Lotus / Sol Ring / etc.
Sol Ring breaks the game in your favor if you play it turn 1 no matter what your deck is, this doesn't unless you have a lot of very specific cards to go with it. Lots of other more Dudley artifacts you can at least get something out of them the turn you play them if you have a ton of mana. This does nothing except let you loot, which if you're hellbent, is nothing. Sure, maybe that's a poor argument, but so is saying "this thing is good cause sol ring is good!" lol.
And again, this isn't 1 mana. Unless you are comboing it with a other cards, which I think will happen way less than people think it will, this costs you 3 mana before it does anything and you have to pitch a real card to get the creature.
Luckily, we won't be playing it in decks where it's bad, or activating it in situations where it's not ideal. So we expect it to play quite well for us.
And here's the rub. Saying "we won't play this card in decks where it's bad or activate it in non-ideal situations" isn't really a complete way to evaluate cube cards either. What matters is how many decks and situations it's actually good in. I think there just aren't that many decks where this card is great, nor do I think it makes those decks that much better, nor do I think it's good in your average cube deck, which makes it a niche card that most cubes won't want. The argument isn't "this card is bad because people will play it badly" (isn't that true of 99.9% of magic cards?) but that this card won't make enough decks better to bother including it.
...this card won't make enough decks better to bother including it.
There might be some cubes where this is the case, but I'd be surprised if this card doesn't make a meaningful and worthwhile impact on the majority of cube lists out there. It's clearly not a card you're interested in, so all the best.
As an aside, I believe this is the only artifact that can loot on its own before T3 to set up an on-curve Necromancy reanimation. Cheap colorless discard outlets are very rare, and ones that can maintain card parity while doing so are largely unprecedented. Right now, this card is showing a lot of promise in reanimator, the artifact.dec, stax builds, Loam shells, and decks utilizing discard engines like Pack Rat, Liliana, Dack, and the like, as well as providing another solid Saga target. Looks to be spicy with Balance and Upheaval too, and maybe even Land Tax. Looking like it'll be quite an impactful inclusion for our playgroup!
I've been on the fence about Currency Converter, but I think I'm going to test it out. I always liked the crossover of how having random madness cards in the cube could pay you off for running discard outlets you wanted anyway for reanimator archetypes, and Currency Converter is kind of like giving a flexible madness-style payoff to all your cards. The trouble with Currency Converter is that it's a high variance card with a low floor, but I think the average case scenario is good enough and the playstyle it encourages is fun enough that it's worth a shot. There are basically three possible situations:
2. Youdrawoneormoreone-shotlootingordiscardeffects, andthiscardisprettygood. Currency Converter at least pays for itself in value in terms of putting the card in your deck, although it being actively great depends on your density of discard effects and drawing your cards in the right order.
3. You have no other way to loot or discard, and this card is kind of bad. Yes, bad. Currency Converter might be OK in scenario 3 if one of its two abilities didn't require it to tap, but both abilities having a t symbol is brutally slow. 3 mana for either a treasure with suspend 1 or a 2/2 with suspend 1 is not good, even if it helps improve your hand by looting once. One could argue that even in scenario 3 it's a discard outlet for graveyard matters cards like in reanimator, but choosing between giving up the Currency Converter 2/2 value or putting suspend 1 on your fatty hitting the graveyard is not appealing.
Mostly I like this card because it signals a build-around discard archetype to go for in a draft, like Madness in limited. I like that it's cheap enough to come down before most of your discard outlets are online. I like that Currency Converter is not color intensive like alternative payoffs Rielle and Glint-Horn Buccaneer, giving it more potential homes in Dimir, Grixis, Golgari, or Sultai. Containment Construct was close but the fact that it did nothing with your expensive reanimator cards meant it didn't have a solid home. Currency Converter is more appealing if your cube supports an artifactsmatter theme, if the cheap artifact is valuable for Tinker strategies, if the exact 1 casting cost matters for Urza's Saga, or if you supportThassa's Oracle + looters as an alt wincon, but even in the absence of those archetype crossovers I think Currency Converter is worth a shot as a flag signaling "draft discard tribal" while also giving your reanimator decks a fallback plan.
...choosing between giving up the Currency Converter 2/2 value or putting suspend 1 on your fatty hitting the graveyard is not appealing.
You won't have to do this a lot of the time. You can get both the body and get the fatty in the yard and cast the reanimation spell on curve if the play is T1 Converter -> T2 EOT Loot -> T3 Activate converter + cast reanimation spell. And even if I do, do I care that I didn't get the 2/2 when I was able to get a Griselbrand onto the board? No other discard outlet would've given me a 2/2 either, so it's not like I'm going to be down in any meaningful way when the card still helped me to both dig into and enable Plan A for my deck...
I see this as having 4 modes.
1. Looting engine for graveyard decks.
2. Combo card with repeatable discard engines.
3. Value card with 1-shot discard effects.
4. Face value effect w/ no synergy.
And in mode #4, the card probably won't make the cut in the deck anyways. But I think options 1-3 are all fantastic, and there will probably be multiple decks at the table in every draft that fit those descriptions.
The problem I've noticed with 2CMC+ looting style effects is how frequently drafters have incorrectly deployed these cards.
1. If you are playing 2 CMC looting effects in combo decks, its fairly straight forward that this helps dig into your combo/ sweepers/ setup for reanimation etc.
2. If you are playing these effects in aggressive/ tempo decks, then these style of effects are fantastic with helping to enable splashes, loot away 1 CMC situational cards such as Spell Pierce/ 1 mana 2/1 etc. This strategy is only effective if the deck has cards such as Force of Will/ Unconditional removal to help make up for the tempo loss.
3. If these style of cards are played in control/ ramp decks, there need to be sweepers/ sweeper based win cons - Ugin/ Inferno Titan that can make up for the tempo loss for the looters while improving card quality.
4. If these style of cards are played in midrange decks, the midrange deck in general should be able to either pivot between aggressive/ value (Psyatog/ Thing in the Ice for example), able to combo (twin) or the deck has generally strong answers (3 counter spells + 3 unconditional removals).
The problem I find is I found drafters playing UR tempo/ midrange decks are able to generate card advantage, but without sufficient unconditional answers/ proactive gameplan (attacking/ combo), they just lose to the opponent top decking a more powerful threat and negating their combo advantage.
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Played this card last night. Was kind of a janky deck but having this on board after an Armageddon was a great way to get mana from treasure and just grind out my opponent by pumping out 2/2s. Definitely not what I thought I would be doing with this card but I think maybe it has more homes than one might expect at first glace.
Destroyed lands aren't discarded. How would this help you?
Well I already had cards exiled with it from before the armageddon. so then while i'm making 2/2s and attacking my opponent is trying to top deck lands. being able to make creatures for 0 mana when you have no lands is extremely helpful.
Card has been performing very well for me. I was on the fence, but I'm converted.
If neither player has any discard effects, it's not good (it's still playable in some decks then even), but when there's multiple discard effects at play, the card is an absolute house.
Do you think it's good enough for a 465-card cube?
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Looking at your cube specifically, there are plenty of colorless cards that I would cut for this since I think Currency Converter is a better roleplayer / general goodstuff card than the following:
Currency Converter has been a solid performer for me. Being cheap, a solid roleplayer in multiple archetypes, having multiple functions, being fetchable with Urza's Saga, and being a generally good filler card for decks that don't care about the graveyard / artifacts has made it very useful in a lot of scenarios. Sometimes you cast it turn 1 and don't do anything with it, but the opportunity cost to play it is so low that it doesn't even matter. The ceiling by pairing this with other discard outlets literally turns this into a 1-cmc colorless planeswalker. I also think a lot of people underestimate the curve of going turn 1 Converter / turn 2 loot / turn 3 cast 4-drop card, which any deck can utilize.
Early on a lot of people were comparing this to Retrofitter Foundry, but honestly they're very different cards. Retrofitter Foundry is a critical mass mana sink that combos with things that make Thopter tokens. Generally Retrofitter Foundry will be more powerful in dedicated artifact shells and has more raw power overall since it can be activated as many times as you want in a single turn assuming you have the mana. Currency Converter is a more versatile roleplayer though, and is generally a more desirable card in a wider variety of decks.
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StaffI think the floor is worth the ceiling since you're essentially paying a 1 mana tax upfront to give yourself the option to give any of your cards Cycling 2: At the beginning of your next upkeep, create a treasure or a 2/2 token. This really helps in the early game to make sure you have some sort of business by filtering your hand, putting up defense against aggro, or ramping / fixing your mana. All of this bundled into something that's essentially a 1 mana planeswalker when paired with other discard outlets, not to mention its archetype applications for reanimator / artifacts matters.
Cryptbreaker is fragile, didn't loot or ramp, and doesn't appeal to any combo decks sans Reanimator.
I always thought Trading Post was pretty janky even when it was released 10 years ago, but I think this card is leagues better than Trading Post was relative to their eras.
This isn't awful against aggro as it at least buys you time on the ground to dig for your answers. Meanwhile, the ramp / combo decks will often want to be playing this.
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StaffI think this is a very poor argument against it since most 1 drops are pretty bad as a hellbent topdeck later in the game. You can essentially say the same thing for something like Black Lotus / Sol Ring / etc.
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Sol Ring breaks the game in your favor if you play it turn 1 no matter what your deck is, this doesn't unless you have a lot of very specific cards to go with it. Lots of other more Dudley artifacts you can at least get something out of them the turn you play them if you have a ton of mana. This does nothing except let you loot, which if you're hellbent, is nothing. Sure, maybe that's a poor argument, but so is saying "this thing is good cause sol ring is good!" lol.
And again, this isn't 1 mana. Unless you are comboing it with a other cards, which I think will happen way less than people think it will, this costs you 3 mana before it does anything and you have to pitch a real card to get the creature.
465 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
And here's the rub. Saying "we won't play this card in decks where it's bad or activate it in non-ideal situations" isn't really a complete way to evaluate cube cards either. What matters is how many decks and situations it's actually good in. I think there just aren't that many decks where this card is great, nor do I think it makes those decks that much better, nor do I think it's good in your average cube deck, which makes it a niche card that most cubes won't want. The argument isn't "this card is bad because people will play it badly" (isn't that true of 99.9% of magic cards?) but that this card won't make enough decks better to bother including it.
465 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
There might be some cubes where this is the case, but I'd be surprised if this card doesn't make a meaningful and worthwhile impact on the majority of cube lists out there. It's clearly not a card you're interested in, so all the best.
As an aside, I believe this is the only artifact that can loot on its own before T3 to set up an on-curve Necromancy reanimation. Cheap colorless discard outlets are very rare, and ones that can maintain card parity while doing so are largely unprecedented. Right now, this card is showing a lot of promise in reanimator, the artifact.dec, stax builds, Loam shells, and decks utilizing discard engines like Pack Rat, Liliana, Dack, and the like, as well as providing another solid Saga target. Looks to be spicy with Balance and Upheaval too, and maybe even Land Tax. Looking like it'll be quite an impactful inclusion for our playgroup!
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1. You stick a repeatable looter or discard effect, and Currency Converter is an insanely fantastic ramp and token maker.
2. You draw one or more one-shot looting or discard effects, and this card is pretty good. Currency Converter at least pays for itself in value in terms of putting the card in your deck, although it being actively great depends on your density of discard effects and drawing your cards in the right order.
3. You have no other way to loot or discard, and this card is kind of bad. Yes, bad. Currency Converter might be OK in scenario 3 if one of its two abilities didn't require it to tap, but both abilities having a t symbol is brutally slow. 3 mana for either a treasure with suspend 1 or a 2/2 with suspend 1 is not good, even if it helps improve your hand by looting once. One could argue that even in scenario 3 it's a discard outlet for graveyard matters cards like in reanimator, but choosing between giving up the Currency Converter 2/2 value or putting suspend 1 on your fatty hitting the graveyard is not appealing.
Mostly I like this card because it signals a build-around discard archetype to go for in a draft, like Madness in limited. I like that it's cheap enough to come down before most of your discard outlets are online. I like that Currency Converter is not color intensive like alternative payoffs Rielle and Glint-Horn Buccaneer, giving it more potential homes in Dimir, Grixis, Golgari, or Sultai. Containment Construct was close but the fact that it did nothing with your expensive reanimator cards meant it didn't have a solid home. Currency Converter is more appealing if your cube supports an artifacts matter theme, if the cheap artifact is valuable for Tinker strategies, if the exact 1 casting cost matters for Urza's Saga, or if you support Thassa's Oracle + looters as an alt wincon, but even in the absence of those archetype crossovers I think Currency Converter is worth a shot as a flag signaling "draft discard tribal" while also giving your reanimator decks a fallback plan.
You won't have to do this a lot of the time. You can get both the body and get the fatty in the yard and cast the reanimation spell on curve if the play is T1 Converter -> T2 EOT Loot -> T3 Activate converter + cast reanimation spell. And even if I do, do I care that I didn't get the 2/2 when I was able to get a Griselbrand onto the board? No other discard outlet would've given me a 2/2 either, so it's not like I'm going to be down in any meaningful way when the card still helped me to both dig into and enable Plan A for my deck...
I see this as having 4 modes.
1. Looting engine for graveyard decks.
2. Combo card with repeatable discard engines.
3. Value card with 1-shot discard effects.
4. Face value effect w/ no synergy.
And in mode #4, the card probably won't make the cut in the deck anyways. But I think options 1-3 are all fantastic, and there will probably be multiple decks at the table in every draft that fit those descriptions.
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1. If you are playing 2 CMC looting effects in combo decks, its fairly straight forward that this helps dig into your combo/ sweepers/ setup for reanimation etc.
2. If you are playing these effects in aggressive/ tempo decks, then these style of effects are fantastic with helping to enable splashes, loot away 1 CMC situational cards such as Spell Pierce/ 1 mana 2/1 etc. This strategy is only effective if the deck has cards such as Force of Will/ Unconditional removal to help make up for the tempo loss.
3. If these style of cards are played in control/ ramp decks, there need to be sweepers/ sweeper based win cons - Ugin/ Inferno Titan that can make up for the tempo loss for the looters while improving card quality.
4. If these style of cards are played in midrange decks, the midrange deck in general should be able to either pivot between aggressive/ value (Psyatog/ Thing in the Ice for example), able to combo (twin) or the deck has generally strong answers (3 counter spells + 3 unconditional removals).
The problem I find is I found drafters playing UR tempo/ midrange decks are able to generate card advantage, but without sufficient unconditional answers/ proactive gameplan (attacking/ combo), they just lose to the opponent top decking a more powerful threat and negating their combo advantage.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
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As the games played out I thought about how it would have played in my deck and it still would have been very good with only its static ability.
I feel like this card will be excellent in my 360.
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Well I already had cards exiled with it from before the armageddon. so then while i'm making 2/2s and attacking my opponent is trying to top deck lands. being able to make creatures for 0 mana when you have no lands is extremely helpful.
If neither player has any discard effects, it's not good (it's still playable in some decks then even), but when there's multiple discard effects at play, the card is an absolute house.
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StaffLooking at your cube specifically, there are plenty of colorless cards that I would cut for this since I think Currency Converter is a better roleplayer / general goodstuff card than the following:
- Pithing Needle
- Ornithopter of Paradise
- Sorcerous Spyglass
- Solemn Simulacrum
- Hedron Archive
- Thran Dynamo
- Gilded Lotus
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StaffEarly on a lot of people were comparing this to Retrofitter Foundry, but honestly they're very different cards. Retrofitter Foundry is a critical mass mana sink that combos with things that make Thopter tokens. Generally Retrofitter Foundry will be more powerful in dedicated artifact shells and has more raw power overall since it can be activated as many times as you want in a single turn assuming you have the mana. Currency Converter is a more versatile roleplayer though, and is generally a more desirable card in a wider variety of decks.
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