I didn't think much of this card the first time I saw it but in retrospect I think it looks really good. Banking mana is very powerful (6 drops on turn 4 is good, while 8 drops on turn 5 is Grim Monolith-adjacent) and there’s actually a ton of super powerful artifact synergies with this card. Looks really good imo, way better than Sphere of the Suns as a color fixer, almost like a Coalition Relic-lite, and Coldsteel Heart etbs tapped and is still one of the best 2cmc rocks so I don’t think the etb tapped downside is too bad for a mana accelerant like this.
At the beginning of your precombat main phase, choose one or more -
· Sell Contraband - Create a Treasure token. You lose 1 life.
· Buy Information - Draw a card. You lose 2 life.
· Hire a Mercenary - Create a 3/2 colorless Shapeshifter creature token with changeling. You lose 3 life.
Pseudo Black Market Tycoon+Phyrexian Arena+Bitterblossom, all wrapped up in one. While the mana cost isn't particularly steep, the life loss is unpreventable and much steeper than it's previously mentioned contemporaries. With that said, the value is immense, and the card pays for itself almost immediately, both in terms of mana and cards. Card looks very versatile, and while it will almost always get sideboarded out vs aggressive decks, I could see this get played in aggressive decks, midrange decks, a variety of combo decks, and even some control decks in matchups where they might need some acceleration and card draw.
Also worth noting, you get to pick your poisons after already drawing your first card for the turn, allowing you to make a more informed decision. The card does suffer from being a pretty middling topdeck, especially when behind. I do personally really like that you can cast your off color 7-drop fatties on turn 5 in reanimator decks with this card as a backup plan, and that it's castable on turn 2 off of a mana dork. Definitely a test for us.
Yea I like this, I think I want to try this over Garruk Relentless but I'll have to talk to the group since we're still deciding on some cuts from the last set's cards.
I agree with everything Steve_Man said, but it should also be mentioned that with even just 2 or 3 discards from another source, like a Liliana of the Veil or a Smuggler's Copter, this thing can actually represent a huge amount of stats for cheap, even pretty early in the game for fair decks. The fact that a cheap, colorless looter can also represent mana acceleration towards a big Living Death or Moat OR an army of 2/2 tokens is unreal. This can absolutely be a tangible win condition in the right circumstances. Gives me serious Jace, Vryn's Prodigy vibes.
Maybe I'm underestimating the inconvenience of that 2cmc activation cost, but I'm having trouble seeing this as anything short of fantastic. It can go in so many decks and be good, even without all the cute (but super easily utilized) synergies.
Card looks great in constructed, but my main knock for this card in cube is it just seems very unreliable for hitting high cmc threats. In control this seems great, but we don't need more control-only cards. This card outside of two color decks is pretty rough, and even in aggressive 2 color decks I think getting more than one or two other white cards to exile might be pretty unreliable. Might still test this, but for now we're probably gonna pass and just test this if it starts making big waves in constructed.
It's a good thread to reopen. Since it just came out I have to mention Invigorating Hot Spring as a great addition to this archetype. There have been a few nice targets to grant haste since 2013 (!) like Elder Gargaroth.
Also, even though I don't have a Fires archetype, I've brought back Anger to great effect since around a year ago. Getting a card in the graveyard is laughably easy in most decks. There are so many cards that allow you to pitch something, and getting a free enchantment-removal-proof Fervor and offsetting the card disadvantage is awesome.
I'm actually so curious about this, has Anger been that good? I suppose a Fervor that costs 0 mana that you get to madness for value is like mana advantage and card advantage. What decks and color combos does it see play in? And do you think it would scale well to smaller and faster cubes?
Black aggro is great in our cube, but the only actually committed black agressive/midrange cards we play that aren't also playable in reanimator or control are Dark Confidant, Bloodghast, Scrapheap Scrounger, and Bitterblossom. That's a pretty high threshold to reach, and while this card is super pushed, all those cards are super dynamic and can generate tangible card advantage and have powerful in-game synergies. Even thought it looks cool and we support black aggro, I don't know if we'll test it. Likely a pass for us, but probably worth it in larger cubes.
EDIT: Apparently we are testing this. Enough people in our circle thought it looked cool, so it's in. Not sure how long it'll last, but worst case a baseline 3/1 with menace can't be half bad, albeit just a little bit narrow.
Aggro and midrnage card that dodges boardwipes and is good late is big game, although this does seem substantially worse than scavenging ooze on turn 2 by comparison, and that card is already near the chopping block for us. This still looks good tho imo
Card looks good enough, the fact of the matter is that pretty much every red 1-drops with haste that doesn't actively have a huge downside is probably pretty deecent. Rabbit battery seems a little low impact for the midrange decks imo, but this being a constant burst/equipment carrying threat strapped to late game cycling looks awesome. Even self-bounce isn't always a downside and can help with removal protection and enable the cycling (and Barrin, Tolarian Archmage if you play that too I guess). I don't think the bounce is that bad, and the rest looks great, all artifact synergies completely aside. If you play any Goblin Welder style archetypes, this looks even better as cheap fodder that doubles as card draw late too.
I'm not super high on this but the group still wants to test it and I'm sure its at least decent. Getting even one single ability from among the more common ones like flying, first strike or haste is huge game, and the baseline is already alright/mediocre. Don't think this will stick long term but definitely worth a shot, as I don't think you need more than like 5 cheap creatures in your deck that can trigger this for value for it to get off the ground rolling in an aggro or midrange deck.
Love the whole cycle for cube, but as other have said this one is probably the best of the bunch. Can't wait to try it.
Only issue is most artifacts and lands worth destroying in cube are worth destroying because they make mana, which this doesn't typically stifle. Still good against thran dynamos and hedron archives and a whole bunch of other stuff, but reclamation sage has like 65-70 good targets in our cube, meanwhile this has like something down closer 50, a bunch of which are manlands which are typically a little worse vs green since games with green decks tend to go a little shorter.
Our playgroup is at a point now that the 3 mana creatures that fail vindicate tests have started to get really unimpressive. Hanweir Garrison is likely the cut for us, and although 3cmc can bee a little late for reanimator pitches, and this doesn't look particularly playable in artifact ramp, just being able to slot into more decks and be better vs boardwipes as a Seasoned Pyromancer-lite is good enough for us. I'm not super impressed, but depending on your deck that new Kiki can still act as a must-kill threat strapped to a 2/2.
Lots of value, makes tokens, fits half-decently into a few archetypes, etc. We'll be testing this.
I don't think this is good. At least in our cube, most of the creatures have static or activated/triggers abilities, so this really doesn't eliminate all that much from the board except stats. The other disadvantageous part of this card is that in control decks or situations where you're trying to protect a plansewalker, that crew five really isn't that far out of reach for a creature or two animate. Especially as a control deck, using this on a creature seems like a really risky bet, seeing as now they're left with threat on board that dodges all your wraths and sorcery speed removal for the rest of the game. Mutavaults are good vs control and PWs, and this opens you up to the same weaknesses.
We played Suspend a few sets back, and we tried that for the same reason: cheap removal that can double as creature protection, and even has few cool combos with through the breach and eldrazi and the like. The card was just too weak, and the fact of the matter is you'll inevitably have to deal with the body later, and alternatively spending it to protect your creature from removal still isn't much better in the value department.
I think this looks worse than suspend, which was far too weak to get played for us. I don't think we'll be testing this.
Have aggro decks become so efficient with disruptive and effective threats that there is no longer a need for tangle wire?
Still sees plenty of plays in our aggro decks, This+Winter Orb are basically colorless Armageddon-lites for less mana. Decks still clamor for the card, even without any cute welder or artifact synergies. I don't think I've seen our playgroup using it in non-aggro decks in a while, so I suppose that's a change, but it's still great in all the aggro and midrange decks as one of the best pieces of disruption available, and it being colorless allows for playability in any aggressive color combo.
We played this maybe 5 years back, since we had a shard card in each color combo. We didn't really see it in regular fair decks, it was pretty much just for the combo. This honestly might be pretty playable in fair decks, but I just think it's important to preface that I've never took the opportunity to play with it that way.
The combo with manadorks honestly works ok and lets you generate some mana, but since there's only so many cantrips in cube it's hard to really kill anybody without Life // Death, which we played at the time to good success. We also played Sylvan Caryatid at the time too, but I suppose we didn't have Ignoble Hierarch at the time so maybe it evens out. Although we did play Rude Awakening in our cube at one time, that was for storm, and never overlapped with Ascendancy.
There are some other obvious cards that work well with the combo like Fatestitcher and Sylvan Awakening but I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody cube with those, meanwhile there's a few non-mana dork, non-token producing cards like Goblin Welder/Goblin Engineer/cheap manlands/looters/Life from the Loam/flahsback or aftermath or delve cards/etc that can get out of control with a few untaps and loots, so if you do test it don't be afraid to play it with some of the weird ***** too lmao
This card is also absolutely broken with Urza, Lord High Artificer, Tinker, Upheaval, Tolarian Academy, Tezzeret the Seeker, all the Karnstruct token producers (Karn, Scion of Urza/Urza's Saga/the aforementioned Urza, Lord High Artificer), and even has some more cute synergies like Oko, Thief of Crowns/Ral Zarek/Teferi, Time Raveler. It's also insane with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and all the Goblin Welder effects but we don't play those in our cube.
Will probably end up trying it over a Boros Signet or something.
Black Market Connections
Enchantment
At the beginning of your precombat main phase, choose one or more -
· Sell Contraband - Create a Treasure token. You lose 1 life.
· Buy Information - Draw a card. You lose 2 life.
· Hire a Mercenary - Create a 3/2 colorless Shapeshifter creature token with changeling. You lose 3 life.
Pseudo Black Market Tycoon+Phyrexian Arena+Bitterblossom, all wrapped up in one. While the mana cost isn't particularly steep, the life loss is unpreventable and much steeper than it's previously mentioned contemporaries. With that said, the value is immense, and the card pays for itself almost immediately, both in terms of mana and cards. Card looks very versatile, and while it will almost always get sideboarded out vs aggressive decks, I could see this get played in aggressive decks, midrange decks, a variety of combo decks, and even some control decks in matchups where they might need some acceleration and card draw.
Also worth noting, you get to pick your poisons after already drawing your first card for the turn, allowing you to make a more informed decision. The card does suffer from being a pretty middling topdeck, especially when behind. I do personally really like that you can cast your off color 7-drop fatties on turn 5 in reanimator decks with this card as a backup plan, and that it's castable on turn 2 off of a mana dork. Definitely a test for us.
That Lay of the Land-->Crystal Ball-->Strike It Rich strapped to a Worn Powerstone in ramp decks looks pretty good, all attached to a relevant blocking body. And in midrange and aggressive decks it's a Lay of the Land-->Earthen Arms-->Lava Axe. Looks explosive and versatile.
Add on the fact that sometimes you'll get to Reach Through Mists/Two-Headed Zombie-->souped-up Turntimber Symbiosis, this can represent a huge in game impact, especially when backed up by a Deranged Hermit or any of the other wide range of good blocking bodies in green.
I agree with everything Steve_Man said, but it should also be mentioned that with even just 2 or 3 discards from another source, like a Liliana of the Veil or a Smuggler's Copter, this thing can actually represent a huge amount of stats for cheap, even pretty early in the game for fair decks. The fact that a cheap, colorless looter can also represent mana acceleration towards a big Living Death or Moat OR an army of 2/2 tokens is unreal. This can absolutely be a tangible win condition in the right circumstances. Gives me serious Jace, Vryn's Prodigy vibes.
Maybe I'm underestimating the inconvenience of that 2cmc activation cost, but I'm having trouble seeing this as anything short of fantastic. It can go in so many decks and be good, even without all the cute (but super easily utilized) synergies.
I'm actually so curious about this, has Anger been that good? I suppose a Fervor that costs 0 mana that you get to madness for value is like mana advantage and card advantage. What decks and color combos does it see play in? And do you think it would scale well to smaller and faster cubes?
We love the efficient card advantage aspect of pitching Bloodghast/Scrapheap Scrounger/Lingering Souls, but cards like Bloodsoaked Champion, Narfi, Betrayer King, Vengevine, Honored Hydra, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Squee/Master of Death, and even Prized Amalgam have been too weak/clunky. I could be forgetting more, but the cheaper the better, and this Anger static being free seems like big game. Never even considered it for cube, and seems a little narrow, but I'm curious as to your experience with it.
EDIT: Apparently we are testing this. Enough people in our circle thought it looked cool, so it's in. Not sure how long it'll last, but worst case a baseline 3/1 with menace can't be half bad, albeit just a little bit narrow.
Aggro and midrnage card that dodges boardwipes and is good late is big game, although this does seem substantially worse than scavenging ooze on turn 2 by comparison, and that card is already near the chopping block for us. This still looks good tho imo
Def gonna try it.
Only issue is most artifacts and lands worth destroying in cube are worth destroying because they make mana, which this doesn't typically stifle. Still good against thran dynamos and hedron archives and a whole bunch of other stuff, but reclamation sage has like 65-70 good targets in our cube, meanwhile this has like something down closer 50, a bunch of which are manlands which are typically a little worse vs green since games with green decks tend to go a little shorter.
Lots of value, makes tokens, fits half-decently into a few archetypes, etc. We'll be testing this.
We played Suspend a few sets back, and we tried that for the same reason: cheap removal that can double as creature protection, and even has few cool combos with through the breach and eldrazi and the like. The card was just too weak, and the fact of the matter is you'll inevitably have to deal with the body later, and alternatively spending it to protect your creature from removal still isn't much better in the value department.
I think this looks worse than suspend, which was far too weak to get played for us. I don't think we'll be testing this.
Still sees plenty of plays in our aggro decks, This+Winter Orb are basically colorless Armageddon-lites for less mana. Decks still clamor for the card, even without any cute welder or artifact synergies. I don't think I've seen our playgroup using it in non-aggro decks in a while, so I suppose that's a change, but it's still great in all the aggro and midrange decks as one of the best pieces of disruption available, and it being colorless allows for playability in any aggressive color combo.
The combo with manadorks honestly works ok and lets you generate some mana, but since there's only so many cantrips in cube it's hard to really kill anybody without Life // Death, which we played at the time to good success. We also played Sylvan Caryatid at the time too, but I suppose we didn't have Ignoble Hierarch at the time so maybe it evens out. Although we did play Rude Awakening in our cube at one time, that was for storm, and never overlapped with Ascendancy.
There are some other obvious cards that work well with the combo like Fatestitcher and Sylvan Awakening but I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody cube with those, meanwhile there's a few non-mana dork, non-token producing cards like Goblin Welder/Goblin Engineer/cheap manlands/looters/Life from the Loam/flahsback or aftermath or delve cards/etc that can get out of control with a few untaps and loots, so if you do test it don't be afraid to play it with some of the weird ***** too lmao