Honestly, there's very little about this card that is 'Un' other than how they named the key words, but 'when this creature does damage, put that many 1/1 squirrels into play' and the rest are all at minimum effects that seem within normal magic's possibility.
The most "Un-" thing about the card is that they won't let MaRo put Squirrels in real Magic anymore.
This really does force the question of how serious the "dies to removal" argument is. At what mana cost do cards have to have an ETB to be considered? Because if this thing turns sideways it's insane.
Just wondering...why is the color balance per pack so important to you? You draft 24 packs per draft and 45 cards in total for a 23 card deck so it all evens out eventually.
The difference is more pronounced, I think, if you're not running a full draft, which I think is a problem a lot of us run into more frequently. If I only have four people, but we don't want to add a lot of extra time to the draft by doing glimpse or burn one or whatever, you end up seeing a lot fewer packs and the distribution can get really wonky. Sure, if you're drafting all of your 360 c/ube, the color distribution will even out over time, but how often do we actually get full drafts?
Leelue's point about reads is also incredibly relevant. Having to wonder if a color got picked out of a pack or if it was just all one color to begin with takes a lot of fun out of the thought process of the draft.
It may just be a little too awkward of a card to make work. It's not a control finisher, because those decks will typically have fewer creatures to upgrade, but it's not an aggro finisher because it costs too much mana to be worthwhile, but it's not a midrange finisher, because upgrading midrange creatures isn't enough of an upgrade... It's also kind of like a guild card (but not really) because it's really bad in it's own color (my blue section has significantly fewer creatures than my other sections) but gets better with whatever other color you add to it.
That said, a lot of c/ubes are ETB: The Gathering with all the Omenspeakers and Sea Gate Oracles of the world. I could see it working in a control deck that plays all the value and removal creatures, but to pick those over counterspells and removal spells you kind of have to be in that mindset from the start. It's a really cool build-around but if you're not going in that direction from the start or your c/ube doesn't really go hard on token-makers or ETB creatures it may not live up to its full potential.
I do kind of want to put it back in, I always liked it way more than the amount that it got drafted/played would indicate.
Territorial Hammerskull- The increase to three toughness from Master of Diversion makes it so much harder for an opponent to have proper blockers that can deal with Hammerskull, and a few burn spells lose there ability to kill Hammerskull outright as well.
Imperial Aerosaur- Usually plays like a Phantom Monster with an extra 3+ damage tacked on as ETB. I am trying to make a good comparison for Peasant, since we have access to 3 power evasion creatures at 3 mana already. Maybe it will play kind of like a white Keldon Champion, since it has that good ETB for damage, but it clearly does not have the immediate outright damage potential.
I think White Keldon Marauder is a good comparison, but obviously Red wants that more than White. If you already support skies, the flying bonus on the ETB is less likely to land as well, which is somewhat of a consideration. I think if I wasn't supporting +1/+1 counters in White, or if my White section was more go-face aggro and less go-wide token aggro, I could find room for this guy.
Raiders' Wake- My experience with Raiders' Wake is as a great tool for any deck that can consistently play on curve turns 2 and 3. The overall effectiveness is dependent on how quickly your opponent can empty their hand, but the average case scenario has been about 2 cards and 4 damage from Wake. This is another tough one to compare to existing Peasant cards, but a mono-black Blazing Specter is the closest I have. Obviously, this has some different upsides and downsides, but I think it deserves some consideration for us.
Now here's the card that's hard to evaluate. I think the most likely complaint is that it requires you to already be somewhat ahead - to have creatures in play and worthwhile attacks. And discard is generally worse the later it comes down, and turn four is right on the edge. It's nice that it enables itself, but I think it would be more playable if it had more incidental support, discard spells we were already running. Outside of like, IoK and Hymn I don't have a lot.
Clique is a card that is exactly solid in EDH. If you have the faintest idea of what someone is up to, it can really trash their plans.
The card's price and strength in other formats I think generates a kind of underwhelming feeling that players get when casting Clique in EDH.
It's good, but it has a lot of hype from outside the format that I think makes people undervalue it.
You guys are probably right. I would rather pick up Go For the Throat in that scenario though, so if I don't commit to cutting black i still have a splashable removal spell.
Personally, I enjoy high-power level games and therefore I enjoy combos.
I honestly enjoy any kind of game of EDH as long as everyone's on the same page. I know what kind of game I'd choose, given the choice, but I'd also enjoy playing with out-of-the-box precons, incredibly do-nothing thematic decks (like "change the color word on cards" theme), or value-ey durdley win the game by turning things sideways decks. Given that there's good communication between players about what level they want to be playing on.
I think people tend to assume that they way they like to play EDH is the "regular" way to play EDH, or the way that most people like to play EDH. It's usually not a correct assumption. There are so many ways to enjoy that format that even the majority could only represent maybe 30% or so of players.
I have noticed an issue that arises when people soft-ban infinite combo, which is that people's definition of combo can be different. Sure, Mike + Trike is infinite. But what if I'm locking people out with Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, and Brago? There's always a window of opportunity, every turn, for players to have a mana open to interact. I'm sure most players who don't enjoy losing to combo would also not enjoy losing to that. Or say I'm controlling a player with Mindslaver every turn, but there's always the possibility I won't be able to recur it. It's not demonstrably infinite, but nine times out of ten the lock won't be broken by itself. I know this violates the "spirit" of combo ban rules, and personally I wouldn't try to manipulate the rules this way (it's easy enough to see what people are going for), but I've seen a ton of players who say "I don't like combo," play things in that environment that are just as "degenerate." Instead of playing "combo as fast as possible" it could just as easily be "MLD as fast as possible" or "Stax as fast as possible" or what have you, and then you have the grumpy debate about what is and isn't a combo.
In a format where communication matters so much, I take the attitude of "anything that's legal is fair" not because I'm super Spikey (well, not just) but because it's just a lot easier to communicate and understand.
With Go For the Throat/Vampire Nighthawk, I'd be afraid that I'd be setting the person next to me into Black as well. Especially with other solid Black cards in the pack. I'd lean more into Faith's Fetters for that reason. Or maybe Goblin Heelcutter if I felt like forcing aggro.
I'm sure there's lots of cards I'll pick up if they end up being cheap, mostly the flip-lands, they're so cool.
But mostly I'm just interested in getting as many Growing Rites as I can get my hands on. I'll also get a stack of Chart a Course because I love cheap card draw/selection.
It doesn't help the card that white 3s are already stacked with a ton of Fiend Hunters and slam-dunks like the Advokist, Soltari Champ, and Flickerwisp. It's one of the harder slots for cards to break into, at least for me.
Still kind of prefer Nessian Asp for the ability to block things in the air really well.
Though if anyone has a legit flash archetype going more power to ya, this seems fine for that.
Mana Crypt is the closest comparison, and quite apt I think. It's artificially scarce and playable in just about nothing.
Legacy and Vintage are two entirely different animals. Force has a lot more demand than Mana Drain.
My favorite card has always been Counterbalance. I just love that it turns deck-manipulation spells, like Brainstorm or Telling Time, into counterspells. I just like building around it. I'm a Blue mage at heart.
The most "Un-" thing about the card is that they won't let MaRo put Squirrels in real Magic anymore.
This really does force the question of how serious the "dies to removal" argument is. At what mana cost do cards have to have an ETB to be considered? Because if this thing turns sideways it's insane.
The difference is more pronounced, I think, if you're not running a full draft, which I think is a problem a lot of us run into more frequently. If I only have four people, but we don't want to add a lot of extra time to the draft by doing glimpse or burn one or whatever, you end up seeing a lot fewer packs and the distribution can get really wonky. Sure, if you're drafting all of your 360 c/ube, the color distribution will even out over time, but how often do we actually get full drafts?
Leelue's point about reads is also incredibly relevant. Having to wonder if a color got picked out of a pack or if it was just all one color to begin with takes a lot of fun out of the thought process of the draft.
That said, a lot of c/ubes are ETB: The Gathering with all the Omenspeakers and Sea Gate Oracles of the world. I could see it working in a control deck that plays all the value and removal creatures, but to pick those over counterspells and removal spells you kind of have to be in that mindset from the start. It's a really cool build-around but if you're not going in that direction from the start or your c/ube doesn't really go hard on token-makers or ETB creatures it may not live up to its full potential.
I do kind of want to put it back in, I always liked it way more than the amount that it got drafted/played would indicate.
The problem here is that white 3 is really stacked with like a million Fiend Hunter variants, Flickerwisp, and Soltari Champion. It might be interchangeable with like, Kor Hookmaster.
I think White Keldon Marauder is a good comparison, but obviously Red wants that more than White. If you already support skies, the flying bonus on the ETB is less likely to land as well, which is somewhat of a consideration. I think if I wasn't supporting +1/+1 counters in White, or if my White section was more go-face aggro and less go-wide token aggro, I could find room for this guy.
Now here's the card that's hard to evaluate. I think the most likely complaint is that it requires you to already be somewhat ahead - to have creatures in play and worthwhile attacks. And discard is generally worse the later it comes down, and turn four is right on the edge. It's nice that it enables itself, but I think it would be more playable if it had more incidental support, discard spells we were already running. Outside of like, IoK and Hymn I don't have a lot.
The card's price and strength in other formats I think generates a kind of underwhelming feeling that players get when casting Clique in EDH.
It's good, but it has a lot of hype from outside the format that I think makes people undervalue it.
I became incredibly more okay with going to the gym when I discovered the wonderful world of podcasts.
I honestly enjoy any kind of game of EDH as long as everyone's on the same page. I know what kind of game I'd choose, given the choice, but I'd also enjoy playing with out-of-the-box precons, incredibly do-nothing thematic decks (like "change the color word on cards" theme), or value-ey durdley win the game by turning things sideways decks. Given that there's good communication between players about what level they want to be playing on.
I think people tend to assume that they way they like to play EDH is the "regular" way to play EDH, or the way that most people like to play EDH. It's usually not a correct assumption. There are so many ways to enjoy that format that even the majority could only represent maybe 30% or so of players.
I have noticed an issue that arises when people soft-ban infinite combo, which is that people's definition of combo can be different. Sure, Mike + Trike is infinite. But what if I'm locking people out with Winter Orb, Tangle Wire, and Brago? There's always a window of opportunity, every turn, for players to have a mana open to interact. I'm sure most players who don't enjoy losing to combo would also not enjoy losing to that. Or say I'm controlling a player with Mindslaver every turn, but there's always the possibility I won't be able to recur it. It's not demonstrably infinite, but nine times out of ten the lock won't be broken by itself. I know this violates the "spirit" of combo ban rules, and personally I wouldn't try to manipulate the rules this way (it's easy enough to see what people are going for), but I've seen a ton of players who say "I don't like combo," play things in that environment that are just as "degenerate." Instead of playing "combo as fast as possible" it could just as easily be "MLD as fast as possible" or "Stax as fast as possible" or what have you, and then you have the grumpy debate about what is and isn't a combo.
In a format where communication matters so much, I take the attitude of "anything that's legal is fair" not because I'm super Spikey (well, not just) but because it's just a lot easier to communicate and understand.
It was not a thing I knew was possible
But mostly I'm just interested in getting as many Growing Rites as I can get my hands on. I'll also get a stack of Chart a Course because I love cheap card draw/selection.
Though if anyone has a legit flash archetype going more power to ya, this seems fine for that.
Legacy and Vintage are two entirely different animals. Force has a lot more demand than Mana Drain.