I wouldn't have liked the card if this ult was any higher than a -7, but at 7 this looks awesome imo. Having access to random burst damage is just huge, even if it's not bigger than a +2/+2 or +3/+3 a lot of the times. With that said though, I can totally imagine this card giving a +4/+4 or +5/+5 anthem sometimes and just suddenly ending games you have no business winning, especially with the Hermits.
[ / ]
Legendary Planeswalker - Nahiri
Compleated ( [ / ] can be paid with , , or 2 life. If life was paid, this planeswalker enters with two fewer loyalty counters.)
[+1]: Until your next turn, up to one target creature attacks a player each combat if able.
[+1]: Discard a card, then draw a card.
[0]: Exile target creature or Equipment card with mana value less than Nahiri's loyalty from your graveyard. Create a token that's a copy of it. That token gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.
[5]
Burst, card filtration, and sometimes card advantage on a 3 mana planeswalker with a potential mountain of loyalty is a pretty decent rate. Card doesn't really fit into any pre-existing mold, but has enough useful and value-generating abilities that it could be a cheap value generator to stuff into a variety of creature based decks. We might try this, but it is important to mention that the third ability specifies you can only recur cards with mana value lower than her loyalty, not less than or equal too. Shouldn't make a huge difference on curve, but could come up occasionally.
Legendary Planeswalker - Vraska
Compleated ( can be paid with , or 2 life. If life was paid, this planeswalker enters with two fewer loyalty counters.)
[0]: You draw a card and you lose 1 life. Proliferate.
[-2]: Target creature becomes a Treasure artifact with " : Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color" and loses all other card types and abilities.
[-9]: If target player has fewer than nine poison counters, they get a number of poison counters equal to the difference.
[6]
Might be a little slow and midrange-y for most cubes, but it's a more splashable Ob Nixilis Reignited that can scale up if you have the extra mana and can work with counter synergies. Not a fit for our cube but this certainly deserves a thread. Seems a little lackluster compared to the competition imo and isn't really an effect I think most black decks are clamoring for.
Black Sun's Twilight
Instant
Up to one target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. If X is 5 or more, return a creature card with mana value X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
Instant speed removal that can scale into an instant speed tapped flash creature for the 2-for-1 is pretty good value. Might be too below rate, but doesn't require a target and can serve as removal for a variety of decks and even a tangible late game threat in control and some ramp decks. Is this too overcosted/narrow, or does this fulfill enough niches to see play? I think it looks pretty good and might give it a spin if we can find room
Hey so we've recently cut our wildfire ramp archetypes since the archetype defining cards (Wildfire and Burning of Xinye) have been struggling heavily with our group for the past year, and we don't think it's getting any better. This also allowed us to open up a whole bunch of red slots for cool cards we always wanted to try like Goldspan Dragon, but notably gave us some room to slot Goblin Welder and Metalworker back in for the first time in a few years. Last time we played welder and worker they were pretty bad for us, but with the new freed up space and a few new cards like Cityscape Leveler, Chaos Defiler, Clown Car (which has been awesome btw), etc we thought we'd give them another spin to see if they can finally be good enough in our format.
We played Daretti, Scrap Savant in our cube a few years back when we added Through the Breach/Eldrazi titans/Nahiri, the Harbinger since it can bin cards for reanimator, get back some fatties in our wildfire ramp decks, and draw cards for Through The Breach combo decks, but it ended up being way to slow. This time around we're trying Goblin Engineer since it can tutor some combo pieces and bin fatties for reanimator like a bodied Unmarked Grave, but in testing it's seemed weak and we'll likely end up going back to try Daretti again for more Goblin Welder redundancy.
Firstly, I wanted to ask if people have any advice on what these red artifact decks typically look like? Since up until just a few months ago, almost our entire near-decade long experience with artifact based decks in cube has been with R/U and G/R ramp archetypes, so trying to move into Red or Blue based midrange archetypes with our artifact decks is certainly going to require a transition period and ample direction. The blue artifact decks have been pretty intuitive, but if anybody has time they could outline for me what these red Goblin Welder decks typically look like? And what do you prioritize when drafting for them, especially how those specific picks differ when drafted with other specific colors? Because I honestly have no idea beyond the artifacts with ETBs and the discard outlets. Some example decklists (even if they're old) would also be a huge blessing if people know places where I could find more of those (also preemptive thank you to steve_man for the list 2 posts above this one).
Secondly, we've been mulling over some bigger artifacts that we've cut or dismissed over the years that might be playable again due to Welder/Daretti being back in the format. These are all cards I've seen get played in other people's lists too, and I wanted to run them by you guys to see if people who've been playing them for a while have any pointers or advice on what works and what doesn't, or more generally what to look for in cards for this archetype?
• Memory Jar was in our cube when we played Storm, but got cut when Storm was removed. Since then we've added Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim, and some artifact recursion. Tourach, Dread Cantor also exists, we just don't play it. This is probably the card I'm most curious about since it naturally slots into ramp decks and certain combo decks too
• We cut Inkwell Leviathan years ago because it was only good in reanimator decks and was surprisingly low impact and easy to race
• Haven't tried Night Scythe, and it seems pretty strong for regular aggro/midrange decks and with the blue artifact synergy cards
• We played Precursor Golem when we tried Mishra's Workshop and cut it when the Shops got cut
• Golos, Tireless Pilgrim never got tested by us, but it's been banned in commander and has seen tons of play from standard all the way to vintage. We play some lands that this can combo with, but in the context of just being a Welder target is this too slow?
• Triplicate Titan was playable for us with Through the Breach and reanimator, but was awful against most of our removal and got cut down the line
• Torrential Gearhulk was decent but really narrow and only playable for us in control decks
• Edit- forgot to mention Spellskite. It got cut for space a year or two ago since it was basically just a combo card in an already tight color, but is it a premier creature in the artifact midrange decks?
Sorry for the long post, but I honestly have almost no experience with this Welder archetype even in other formats and want to implement it well. I'll gladly take any input yall got, and thanks for everyone's time
In our cube white has 2 good hits, blue has 7, black has 9, Red has 7, and green has 1. I don't think that's enough.
Not sure what I'm missing here but this seems really mediocre imo, since I don't think our cube is particularly different composition-wise from others'. We tested Sea Gate Stormcaller when it came out, and it was pretty middling too so I don't think that's a great reflection on this card.
Our black aggressive decks aren't particularly low to the ground, and don't rely as highly on curving out with one drop creatures on one. Our black section also lacks early token producers, which is another strike against this card.
With that said, this is definitely a playable aggro and midrange creature in a thin cmc slot, and specifically rewards token strategies. Not sure if we try this, but I think it looks intriguing. Might have to give it a whirl since if you're the aggressor this can easily get out of control, even in just a single combat step, but I could see this being too slow a lot of the time too.
I don't expect the last ability to get used almost ever, but it being instant speed and there being no timing restrictions on playing the spells or lands could be an occasional game changer when paired with green.
Card looks awesome imo, might just cut The Restoration of Eiganjo (or maybe even a non-3 drop card) for this.
People already mentioned Karakas and card draw denian effects, but I like that this makes now-useless hand attack spells more useful late in the game. Eot activate this, then do it again on your turn, then pull the trigger on your turn 6 Thoughtseize. More cute than anything but does offer another tangible use for the ability that isn't a danger to yourself.
I'm not particularly high on this, as this is pretty slow and understatted at whichever rate you play it at. It can go into tons of decks and has some unique synergies to essentially "cheat" the 7/5 into play but I'm still not convinced its very good when you actually do. My playgroup is super high on it so we'll still test it, but I wouldn't expect this to stick long term, but I hope I'm wrong and there's some nuance here I'm undervaluing.
Card looks great, but all of our Izzet spells are too important. Even if we added another, Expressive Iteration would be the next man up, probably followed by Prismari Command.
Card looks sweet. Red 2s for us are always weird since most of them are pretty middling and boring from a powerlevel perspective. Excited that this gives some interesting and potentially powerful token incentives for red aggro and faster midrange decks. Playing this on 6 can also be pretty decent topdeck. The mana sink aspect of this especially gives plenty of late game reach, and while not so much to block with it can still set up some slower wins with Opposition or Garruk Wildspeaker.
I think Kari Zev, Skyship Raider and Young Pyromancer are the only red 2s wee play that we really love. Eidolon of the Great Revel is pretty narrow but it's really iconic and strong in aggro alone, Radha's Firebrand is getting tested since we just added triomes, leaving Flametongue Yearling and Dire Fleet Daredevil as the odd ones out as they haven't been typically too great in our aggro decks, even if they're pretty useful elsewhere. I don't think we play enough red 2s, so even though the slot is weak I'm guessing one of our 5s gets cut for this guy instead of a same cmc swap.
We've been super disappointed with Dauntless Bodyguard (and were even more unimpressed with Usher of the Fallen when we played that for a while) since they honestly manage to struggle to do anything for midrange decks when they got played, until people just stopped playing with them outside of aggro decks completely.
I've had the opposite experience: Dauntless Bodyguard and Usher of the Fallen have performed very well for me, especially compared to the other Savannah Lion variants I've played over the years. Their abilities are very efficient and relevant to what white aggro wants to be doing, where a lot of others have situational abilities like Soldier of the Pantheon / Mardu Woe Reaper. My top 4 Savannah Lion variants (in no particular order) are Kytheon / Isamaru / Usher of the Fallen / Dauntless Bodyguard.
We found them to be fine, and they are definitely at the top of the heap of the straight white 2/1s, but I think you're missing what I'm trying to explain. These cards might be good in aggro decks, and are arguably better than a variety of white 1 drops like Thraben Inspector or Recruitment Officer in these aggro decks, but the disparity in speed or value isn't substantial enough to warrant playing them over the alternatives. Maybe this is just a side-effect of having such a small cube, but if a card isn't broken (Natural Order) or absolutely fundamental support for an archetype (Craterhoof Behemoth), then the support cards need to go into several decks. White aggro decks need a critical mass of one drops available to function properly, but midrange decks are their own archetype that require their own unique support, and cards like Usher of the Fallen have just not worth been worth playing in slightly higher curve midrange decks, making it exclusively an aggro card. Space is too tight, and that's just too narrow for us.
I feel like Dauntless Bodyguard requires its own explanation though, as I think its struggles may have had more to do with what specific removal and wraths we play in our cube. Literally almost all of our single target removal isn't "destroy" based outside of the small burn spells (I think before our most recent update it was 5 cards out of 375), and neither are the vast majority of our actual wraths (currently 2 cards, before our last update it was 3). The ability was just legitimately not useful for us at all, and we've had it in for over 4 years at this point.
Same. I’ve activated many an usher ability and dauntless have protected many a creatures and many times have those effected the outcome of the game.
edit: re-read Scott’s post. Not a fan of the philosophy to evaluate 1 drops solely on their usefulness in midrange decks… but I agree, in specifically midrange , most of the white 1 drops will underperform and their relative power will change compared to when they are in Agro.
Though, I actually think both those cards do fine in midrange. One can win the game by itself in theory and the other can protect a key expensive threat.
I feel like on paper they should be decent midrange cards, and I'm sure your positive and repeated experiences with those creatures are completely legitimate, but in our environment they simply haven't performed that way in non-aggro decks.
It's not that aggro creatures have to go into midrange decks too, it's that they usually have to go into more than just aggro. Rotting Regisaur isn't just an awesome aggro creature, it's also a great discard outlet in reanimator. Undermountain Adventurer isn't just serviceable aggro top-end, it's also a sweet midgame enabler for green ramp decks. Ral Zarek gets played in some faster izzet decks, but he also accelerates artifact ramp and can enable Time Vault combos. Not every card can fit this mold, but we generally prioritize inclusions that can.
I should also mention that your assertion that "most of the white 1 drops will underperform and their relative power will change compared to when they are in aggro" is correct in regards to most of the one drop 2/1-esque creatures, but not for small cubes. We personally play 6 white 1s, and between the 2 moms, Thraben Inspector, and this new Recruitment Officer card, I think 2/3s of our 1s will be just as good if not better in midrange decks than in aggro decks. I know the minutia of that statement isn't super important most of the time, but I hope this illustrates that there's an actual precedent set at our size for how almost all of our aggro creatures should play, and that this precedent is routinely met.
Yea I'm in the same boat. I think this is much more comparable to Spectral Sailor, and I think this card's body and combined abilities are both much better than that card or the alternative 2/1 with the hypothesized player ping ability.
However, this card is just another in along line of powerful green cards that care about your lands being forests (Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, Arbor Elf, Nissa, Who Shakes the World, etc). We currently play and love Gaea's Cradle, Treetop Village, and Boseiju, Who Endures, but also run Turntimber Symbiosis and have played with Bala Ged Recovery in the past. At what point do people think nonbasic green lands start getting worse due to forest density concerns? Is that still a ways away, or is something like Turntimber Symbiosis starting to get a little inconvenient for others?
Comet is prob like a top 5 multicolored card, I don't think playing it discounts the playability of Nahiri.
Nahiri, the Unforgiving
Legendary Planeswalker - Nahiri
Compleated ( [
[+1]: Until your next turn, up to one target creature attacks a player each combat if able.
[+1]: Discard a card, then draw a card.
[0]: Exile target creature or Equipment card with mana value less than Nahiri's loyalty from your graveyard. Create a token that's a copy of it. That token gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.
[5]
Burst, card filtration, and sometimes card advantage on a 3 mana planeswalker with a potential mountain of loyalty is a pretty decent rate. Card doesn't really fit into any pre-existing mold, but has enough useful and value-generating abilities that it could be a cheap value generator to stuff into a variety of creature based decks. We might try this, but it is important to mention that the third ability specifies you can only recur cards with mana value lower than her loyalty, not less than or equal too. Shouldn't make a huge difference on curve, but could come up occasionally.
Vraska, Betrayals Sting
Legendary Planeswalker - Vraska
Compleated (
[0]: You draw a card and you lose 1 life. Proliferate.
[-2]: Target creature becomes a Treasure artifact with "
[-9]: If target player has fewer than nine poison counters, they get a number of poison counters equal to the difference.
[6]
Might be a little slow and midrange-y for most cubes, but it's a more splashable Ob Nixilis Reignited that can scale up if you have the extra mana and can work with counter synergies. Not a fit for our cube but this certainly deserves a thread. Seems a little lackluster compared to the competition imo and isn't really an effect I think most black decks are clamoring for.
Black Sun's Twilight
Instant
Up to one target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. If X is 5 or more, return a creature card with mana value X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
Instant speed removal that can scale into an instant speed tapped flash creature for the 2-for-1 is pretty good value. Might be too below rate, but doesn't require a target and can serve as removal for a variety of decks and even a tangible late game threat in control and some ramp decks. Is this too overcosted/narrow, or does this fulfill enough niches to see play? I think it looks pretty good and might give it a spin if we can find room
We played Daretti, Scrap Savant in our cube a few years back when we added Through the Breach/Eldrazi titans/Nahiri, the Harbinger since it can bin cards for reanimator, get back some fatties in our wildfire ramp decks, and draw cards for Through The Breach combo decks, but it ended up being way to slow. This time around we're trying Goblin Engineer since it can tutor some combo pieces and bin fatties for reanimator like a bodied Unmarked Grave, but in testing it's seemed weak and we'll likely end up going back to try Daretti again for more Goblin Welder redundancy.
Firstly, I wanted to ask if people have any advice on what these red artifact decks typically look like? Since up until just a few months ago, almost our entire near-decade long experience with artifact based decks in cube has been with R/U and G/R ramp archetypes, so trying to move into Red or Blue based midrange archetypes with our artifact decks is certainly going to require a transition period and ample direction. The blue artifact decks have been pretty intuitive, but if anybody has time they could outline for me what these red Goblin Welder decks typically look like? And what do you prioritize when drafting for them, especially how those specific picks differ when drafted with other specific colors? Because I honestly have no idea beyond the artifacts with ETBs and the discard outlets. Some example decklists (even if they're old) would also be a huge blessing if people know places where I could find more of those (also preemptive thank you to steve_man for the list 2 posts above this one).
Secondly, we've been mulling over some bigger artifacts that we've cut or dismissed over the years that might be playable again due to Welder/Daretti being back in the format. These are all cards I've seen get played in other people's lists too, and I wanted to run them by you guys to see if people who've been playing them for a while have any pointers or advice on what works and what doesn't, or more generally what to look for in cards for this archetype?
• Memory Jar was in our cube when we played Storm, but got cut when Storm was removed. Since then we've added Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim, and some artifact recursion. Tourach, Dread Cantor also exists, we just don't play it. This is probably the card I'm most curious about since it naturally slots into ramp decks and certain combo decks too
• We cut Inkwell Leviathan years ago because it was only good in reanimator decks and was surprisingly low impact and easy to race
• Haven't tried Night Scythe, and it seems pretty strong for regular aggro/midrange decks and with the blue artifact synergy cards
• We played Precursor Golem when we tried Mishra's Workshop and cut it when the Shops got cut
• Golos, Tireless Pilgrim never got tested by us, but it's been banned in commander and has seen tons of play from standard all the way to vintage. We play some lands that this can combo with, but in the context of just being a Welder target is this too slow?
• Triplicate Titan was playable for us with Through the Breach and reanimator, but was awful against most of our removal and got cut down the line
• Torrential Gearhulk was decent but really narrow and only playable for us in control decks
• Edit- forgot to mention Spellskite. It got cut for space a year or two ago since it was basically just a combo card in an already tight color, but is it a premier creature in the artifact midrange decks?
Sorry for the long post, but I honestly have almost no experience with this Welder archetype even in other formats and want to implement it well. I'll gladly take any input yall got, and thanks for everyone's time
Not sure what I'm missing here but this seems really mediocre imo, since I don't think our cube is particularly different composition-wise from others'. We tested Sea Gate Stormcaller when it came out, and it was pretty middling too so I don't think that's a great reflection on this card.
With that said, this is definitely a playable aggro and midrange creature in a thin cmc slot, and specifically rewards token strategies. Not sure if we try this, but I think it looks intriguing. Might have to give it a whirl since if you're the aggressor this can easily get out of control, even in just a single combat step, but I could see this being too slow a lot of the time too.
I don't expect the last ability to get used almost ever, but it being instant speed and there being no timing restrictions on playing the spells or lands could be an occasional game changer when paired with green.
People already mentioned Karakas and card draw denian effects, but I like that this makes now-useless hand attack spells more useful late in the game. Eot activate this, then do it again on your turn, then pull the trigger on your turn 6 Thoughtseize. More cute than anything but does offer another tangible use for the ability that isn't a danger to yourself.
I think Kari Zev, Skyship Raider and Young Pyromancer are the only red 2s wee play that we really love. Eidolon of the Great Revel is pretty narrow but it's really iconic and strong in aggro alone, Radha's Firebrand is getting tested since we just added triomes, leaving Flametongue Yearling and Dire Fleet Daredevil as the odd ones out as they haven't been typically too great in our aggro decks, even if they're pretty useful elsewhere. I don't think we play enough red 2s, so even though the slot is weak I'm guessing one of our 5s gets cut for this guy instead of a same cmc swap.
Should also mention that this is really unconventionally good with Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance and Flametongue Yearling if you play those, and gets really nasty with blocking flash creatures like Sicarian Infiltrator or instant speed token producers like Young Pyromancer or Occult Epiphany. At first glance this seems like a top tier red 2 drop to me, can't wait to test this.
I feel like Dauntless Bodyguard requires its own explanation though, as I think its struggles may have had more to do with what specific removal and wraths we play in our cube. Literally almost all of our single target removal isn't "destroy" based outside of the small burn spells (I think before our most recent update it was 5 cards out of 375), and neither are the vast majority of our actual wraths (currently 2 cards, before our last update it was 3). The ability was just legitimately not useful for us at all, and we've had it in for over 4 years at this point.
I feel like on paper they should be decent midrange cards, and I'm sure your positive and repeated experiences with those creatures are completely legitimate, but in our environment they simply haven't performed that way in non-aggro decks.
It's not that aggro creatures have to go into midrange decks too, it's that they usually have to go into more than just aggro. Rotting Regisaur isn't just an awesome aggro creature, it's also a great discard outlet in reanimator. Undermountain Adventurer isn't just serviceable aggro top-end, it's also a sweet midgame enabler for green ramp decks. Ral Zarek gets played in some faster izzet decks, but he also accelerates artifact ramp and can enable Time Vault combos. Not every card can fit this mold, but we generally prioritize inclusions that can.
I should also mention that your assertion that "most of the white 1 drops will underperform and their relative power will change compared to when they are in aggro" is correct in regards to most of the one drop 2/1-esque creatures, but not for small cubes. We personally play 6 white 1s, and between the 2 moms, Thraben Inspector, and this new Recruitment Officer card, I think 2/3s of our 1s will be just as good if not better in midrange decks than in aggro decks. I know the minutia of that statement isn't super important most of the time, but I hope this illustrates that there's an actual precedent set at our size for how almost all of our aggro creatures should play, and that this precedent is routinely met.
Yea I'm in the same boat. I think this is much more comparable to Spectral Sailor, and I think this card's body and combined abilities are both much better than that card or the alternative 2/1 with the hypothesized player ping ability.