MTG Salvation

My hits at 540 for it are:

Bonesplitter
Trusty Machete
Chronomaton
Everflowing Chalice

(Signets don't work)

If I knew my deck had any two of those, I'd play the Mage. But that's so unlikely to actually come together, and even then the payoff isn't great.

Signets cost 2, so this can't get them. In my Peasant cube, there are only 6 targets Trinket Mage could find, and half of those are aggro equipment which go into decks where Trinket mage doesn't really seem like that great of a fit. I don't really think that's enough to justify the inclusion of Trinket Mage unless you're running a really heavy artifact theme. I don't even think this makes the cut in unpowered rare cubes.

The question is... how many artifacts at cmc 1 or less do you have to run to justify this card...?

Good point by Spike that some of those are going to be aggressive equipments... I just don't think you can justify it without including rares...

Oh shoot, ignore what I said about the signets! I forgot. And yes, aggro decks usually don't want this guy :/

Playable if you make jank rules like "you get 1 of each artifact land during deck cosntruction", too fringe outside of that. We just don't have enough good 1cmc artifacts. I do really like the card though.

Let's put this on the backburner until Kaladesh perhaps?

EDIT:

Quote from Leelue »

I never thought of Animate dead as a staple, to be fair. huh.

And is that why you shouldn't "filter" I wonder? Even if you do end up with a staple, not everyone might be aware of that, and that information in itself can be useful?

If all you get is four-five comments that all go "staple.next", then you can just put up the next card sooner, can't you?

At some point I'd like to explore the aura/enchantment theme. I think cards like Heliod's Pilgrim are super fun. I'll make it a project of mine at some point in the future and I'll make it happen if I can justify it.

alright

First result for once

Ghostly Prison

I had it in my first iteration of cube, but I took it out because it was too backbreaking against aggro. Especially if you are on the play you can completely destroy their game plan if they don't have an answer. They can play their 3-drop, but lose the opportunity to attack with their 1 and 2-drops. Or attack with their 2-drop but don't play their 3-drop. And that same dilemma happens every turn, while you have your mana to do whatever you want and keep developing your board / countering spells / whatever. Even the less aggressive go wide strategies can struggle against it if they would usually win by attacking with 6+ guys at once.

I might play a nerfed version that only cost 1 mana to attack.

Prison is a card I've done a total 180 on. When I started designing my cube I thought it'd be cool to involve game locking cards like that, to present boardstates you can't find in other formats and have some great one-sided fun. The more I played with the card though, the more I found that that's actually not a good way to make an interesting game of magic. If enchantment removal was as prevalent as creature removal it might be fairer, but given there's so little playable removal for it, I don't care for it. I find new cube players seldom value enchantment/artifact removal while drafting until after they get blown out by one anyway.

It also single-handedly invalidates any token/go-wide strategy and I've pushed tokens to various extents in 4 colours so it grates really badly.

Not a fan.
If I'd run this, I'd at least throw in a lot of Felidar Cub type effects, but what would Rakdos do?

Is this effect available on a creature? That would be more bearable. Or run Sphere of safety instead, it at least takes some setting up and costs 5(?...hits preview..yeah it was 5.)

(Completely unrelated to Peasant, but I just noticed that these old cards don't have the "..or a planeswalker you control" rider.)

I run it. It's not a problem here. Sure, it stops aggro decks sometimes, but sometimes it doesn't. There's like.. idk 4 scenarios.

They draw Ghostly Prison, you don't draw an answer
They draw Ghostly Prison, you draw an answer
They don't draw it, you have an answer
they don't draw it, you don't draw an answer

in 3 of those scenarios, the not Ghostly Prison player comes out on top. Well not on top, but where Ghostly Prison does nothing.

Just quickly looking at the last like.. 6 poster's cubes online, I noticed I'm the only one with Grafted Wargear and Loxodon Warhammer and Behemoth Sledge. perhaps I'm okay with pushing the powerlevel more than everyone else, which may result in more "oppressive" single cards. I'm clearly in the minority.

Quote from JovianHomarid »

... what would Rakdos do?

In my cube, they'd side in Manic Vandal if they have it. If not, they hope the opponent doesn't draw it :).

check out my double posting. Dang, it's late.

Quote from Phitt77 »

EDIT: They use Manic Vandal to destroy an enchantment?

It's late

Quote from Phitt77 »

'They don't draw it' is a reason why a card is not problematic?

I don't have trouble dealing with it when its not drawn/played :p.

Quote from Phitt77 »

the 'you don't draw an answer' will happen far more often than 'you draw an answer'.

Yea sure, it's less likely that i'll draw an answer to Ghostly Prison. Lets pretend I have idk one answer to it, say... Qasali Pridemage. I have some % chance of drawing it out of 40. Doesn't my opponent also have the same odds for drawing Ghostly Prison?

I think in that scenario, those 4 cases are pretty accurate. 3/4 times, the Qasali Pridemage player comes out on top (no prison + pridemage, no prison + no pridemage, prison + pridemage).

And sure, ignoring my Manic Vandal comment, Rakdos doesn't have (i think?) anything other than hope. I'm fine with that.

I guess t4 Rakdos could pay 2, take his/her whateverdrop from t2 and Incinerate a blocker and call it a day. Hope, my friends.

Again, after looking through a couple people's cube, I'm the only one (I think) that has the card included in their list, so i'm clearly in the minority.

Edit: aaaayyynd, sometimes you have more than one answer to Ghostly Prison. For example, i wouldn't be surprised if a GW player had some 2card combination of Ronom Unicorn, Kor Sanctifiers, Qasali Pridemage, Conclave Naturalists, Acidic Slime, Reclamation Sage, or Oblivion Ring in their pool of cards.

White has things like Ronom Unicorn, etc. I listed most of them up there.

Blue/whatever decks have [c"Complicate"]counterspells[/c] available, and can just hold onto those until Ghostly Prison does (or doesn't) get played.

Black has... discard thingies + hope

Red has hope as well

Green's got some stuff.

Red/black is the only duel color combo that has the unfortunate reality of having trouble dealing with enchantments.

Now I'm just rambling. I'm going to finish this pizza and knock out.

I suppose the answer is that Rakdos plays Inquisition of Kozilek and/or Duress. But I'm wary of cards that have games devolve into "did they draw it".

Just one matchup among many in a full 6-8 player draft . Rakdos also isn't pidgeonholed into pure aggro.

A 3drop that requires no setup to generate (potentially massive) mana advantage in basically every matchup and immediately turns the corner for any control deck vs an aggro deck is too below curve for me.

Leadfeather, you cannot use "when they don't draw it, it doesn't affect the game" as an argument. Please.

The card only matters when you draw it. This should be the most obvious point that exists

I also don't see how the Pridemage player "comes out on top" just because they could deal with Prison (or it wasn't drawn). The way I look at those scenarios is that 3/4 of the time you get a competitive game of Magic, and 1/4 of the time you just don't.

I don't play it, or Propaganda. If I were to run this kind of effect, it would be War Tax - the player with it will have to choose whether locking down the opponent from attacking or developing their board is more important.

It's not like ghostly prison closes a game out against every deck as soon as it hits the field. Sure, I've lost games to it, but I've also won games against it. It's not backbreaking for me at all.

I really don't like cards that singlehandedly dictate how a game will play, but I REALLY don't like 3 drop noncreature cards that require no extra work that dictate how wide swaths of games will play.

Quote from JovianHomarid »

Is this effect available on a creature?

Watch in awe as I answer my own question: I'd suggest breaking rarity and running Windborn Muse over this.

I just remembered that you play mostly 1v1 games, where it might be not as fun. I usually draft with 6 people, albeit infrequently. In addition to that, I USED to 4man sealed with my roommates. And rarest of all, I would do 8man drafts from the LGS or friends from my grad program.

This is perhaps less the case for some. Strictly 1v1 with just those two decks feels crummy I guess.

if you were drafting aggro and saw it come to you, you'd hatedraft it (because it's oppressive by your definition). If you didn't see it, then someone else may have hatedrafted it, or someone picked it up to maindeck. If someone is maindecking it, you might not play them. If you do play them, then you side in your relevant cards from your sideboard. If you don't have any relevant sideboards, that sucks, but doesn't dictate the way the game goes every time.

Ghostly prison in. A control vs control matchup is hardly doing anything. I'm fine with developing a hand/board and attacking one at a time with a drake token. I'm also fine with holding on to a counter spell for the "dreaded" ghostly prison.

But on another note, I don't have propaganda, as I recognize that two of the same card would be ridiculous.

Again, I'm totally in the minority, and I don't think it's oppressive at all. I think that this thread is.. Kinda cool, but only when the card chosen is closer to a 50/50 split among people who use the card. Then it's just 1 vs the world

I'm glad I'm not alone on the Ghostly Prison thing.